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Food poverty charity celebrates new kitchen
The MAZI Kitchen and Counter Culture have held a party in celebration of the MAZI Project opening at their new premises.
Not only have they moved to new permanent premises in Bedminster, but they have expanded their operations to do more for the community.
By using food the youth-led charity empowers care leavers, young asylum seekers, youth recovering from homelessness and fleeing domestic violence.
is needed now More than ever
They offer talks, cooking classes and place an emphasis on sourcing local, high quality, seasonal food.
Currently supporting 90 disadvantaged 16- to 25-year-olds each week with healthy and nutritious food package deliveries. They’re now hoping to get 160 boxes by the end of the year.
Those deliveries provide young people with three meals per week, each meal serving two people.
The MAZI Project founder Melanie Vaxevanakis, says: “We’ve been wanting to move for quite a while
“Its been difficult seeing the demand and having to say no to people because of our limited capacity, its really hard
“When I first started MAZI, I always pictured a community kitchen, a space for all people from the community to come together and break bread together.”
Following their temporary base at Kitchen by KASK on North Street, Melanie says that it is now “nice to feel more in control of our future and what we can do”.
“This becomes a multi-functional space, which is driven for the community by the community”
Melanie added: “It feels like more and more young people are not just looking for food.
“The people who are referred to us, more than 65 per cent are looking for ways to eat healthier and to eat fresh ingredients because they don’t have access to that.
“I think the cost of living crisis and prices increasing, with benefits not being in-line with inflation, it’s causing so many vulnerable people to have to skip meals, to go deeper into mental health issues.”
The charity not only focuses on bringing healthy meals to youths, it also puts a great emphasis on sourcing high-quality ingredients from local and sustainable businesses.
In summer they try to get all their fresh vegetables from within a 20-mile radius.
“We do need to work harder on localising it, working with smaller scale producers, eating seasonally and on increasing pay to them,” said Melanie.
“I think food is the most intimate, passionate thing. Bristol has such a beautiful network of restaurants and this ethos of getting together and uniting to take social issues and fighting social injustices.
But sourcing local food comes with challenges for the charity, with the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis showing a very broken food system
“Whether that’s having access to tomatoes, when there was tomato gate or whatever, it’s because we import over 60 per cent of our fresh food, which is an insane amount and that means we’re so dependant on external factors we can’t control,” Melanie added.
Friends and family were gathered for the opening of the community kitchen
Climate change is a big challenge too, “last year there was a frost that meant we lost a lot of cauliflowers, and we noticed because we were using it in one of our recipes. So, it’s stuff like that that makes it harder.”
“It’s interesting and scary to see how the economic crisis and climate change are, how it’s impacting our food and what we can get.
“When our young people start with us, we give them their own recipe books that talks about the different seasonal ingredients, which we think is also a nice way to include them in the fight against climate change.
“It’s a part of food where there is a knowledge gap in understanding the importance.”
Food justice workshops is something they are hoping to implement in their courses. This will also be in line with Bristol’s goals as set out in the Good Food Framework 2030.
Bristol Beer Factory donated their products for a discounted price to help with the opening
These challenges is what makes collaboration a key component of the MAZI ethos.
Melanie said: “I think Covid highlighted the need for the private sector and the third sector to come together to fight against crisis or to support marginalized groups.”
Their partners have included Bristol hospitality heavyweights like the Pony, Bianchis, Hart’s Bakery and Box-E, as well as charities like Caring in Bristol, Feeding Bristol and 1625 Independent People.
“One thing we want to do is work further with the private sector, businesses for sponsorship and we do offer team building days.”
The team building days contribute greatly to the everyday running of the kitchen.
The MAZI Project’s most recent crowdfunded campaign this year is to raise £30,000 to purchase a new delivery van to continue their outreach across the city.
Speaking on the financial aspect of running a charity, Melanie says: “It’s tough, it’s quite dependent on grants, putting us at the hands of other people and it’s very time consuming. There’s not enough guaranteed funding.
“There is only so much we can do, we need help from central government as well.”
The MAZI Project celebrated its third anniversary this year; photos showing their growth through the years are highlighted throughout the new kitchen
In 2021, Bristol became the second city in the UK to receive the ‘gold sustainable food city’ status.
However, according to the latest Health and Wellbeing Profile, around 1 in 23 households in Bristol experienced severe food insecurity in 2023/24, and 1 in 12 experienced moderate to severe food insecurity.
Of approximately 200,000 households in Bristol, this equates to nearly 16,600 households which are estimated to be experiencing moderate to sever food insecurity, and more than 8,600 from severe food insecurity.
Availability of resources across the city is of particular concern. Access to fresh and nutritious food varies considerably between areas, with residents living in some of the more deprived areas.
Certain groups were more likely to experience food insecurity and require emergency food provision compared to the Bristol average. This includes respondents with a disability, those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, single parents, carers, those who identified as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) and people aged 16 to 24.
Lily Farmer, MAZI’s head of education says: “For lots of young people who have experienced distress, they avoid making mistakes. The kitchen is a really good place to test out how do I feel when I take a risk.”
Besides celebrating the charities new premises, the fight for food equity is not over and they have several hopes and ambitions for the rest of the year.
Melanie added: “A few of the things we’re wanting to push for is a parliamentary food bill that looks at food security and resilience, from making sure farmers are paid appropriately to the impact of disasters and food deserts.
“We want to extend free school meals to everyone and more of a mainstream food education.
“Now it’s going to become us using food as a tool of social mobility, a tool for increasing confidence for young people in cooking, to then helping them if they want to start their own food business or giving them training to go into the hospitality businesses”.
On the upcoming classes, food education lead Lily Farmer, says there will be four-week programmes with space for six people, centred around growing young peoples confidence in the kitchen, but also their self esteem and reducing isolation.
Collaborating with the team, Caring in Bristol and Migrateful will be able to host classes in the new kitchen for their own programmes.
The first classes at the new premise will begin in late November.
All photos: Hannah Massoudi
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