BONUS Episode : Why Community Kitchens are Essential with Sarah Bentley from

29th Nov 2021

If you love listening to passionate and enthusiastic visionaries, You’re going to love my guest today. Sarah Bentley is the founder of plant-based community cookery school Made In Hackney.

They fired up their hobs for the first time in 2012 and if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been a supporter and ambassador for them since 2016.

The school delivers cookery and food growing classes across London with the aim to inspire people to grow, cook and eat more plants for the benefit of both human and planetary health. I’ve led a few classes in the past and they are wonderful celebrations of food, community and culture.

Their work crosses the fields of food justice, climate action, community cohesion, health equality and so much more. And now, thanks to their online programme, people can experience Made In Hackney’s multicultural plant-based global cuisine focused classes from anywhere in the world. 

In addition to their cookery classes the school provides free nutritious meals delivered by cycle courier to households in need of food support. This was a service started in response to the pandemic that left vulnerable people at risk of hunger and I’m glad to say that this service is still up and running and has been added as yet another service that MIH will offer their community in 2022. They are crowdfunding to support this service here: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/noonegoeshungry2022 for another year so if you’re interested and fired up to support them.

Prior to founding Made In Hackney Sarah was a freelance journalist with a specialism in reggae music and was a community food grower and gardening teacher. You’re going to hear more about her story right now. Enjoy!