About Community Kitchens

What are Community Kitchens?

A Community Kitchen is a group of like-minded individuals who come together on a regular basis to socialise and cook affordable and nutritious meals. The participants then sit down to share the meal or divide it up for each person to take home. Through buying and cooking in bulk, many Kitchens are able to produce meals at a lower cost than individuals who cook at home for themselves.

The Community Kitchens are owned and driven by the participants. They make all the decisions about the running of the group including how often the group meets and what they will be cooking. Community Kitchens are for everybody in the community and people from many different walks of life attend.

What Community Kitchens ARE NOT!

    Community Kitchens ARE NOT;

  • Cooking classes – Community Kitchens participants learn from each other and through their own hands-on experiences rather than from one ‘expert’ person teaching the group;
  • Welfare-style soup kitchens – Community Kitchens participants contribute to the costs of the food and cook the food themselves: they have full ownership and there are no handouts;
  • Communal cooking spaces – Community Kitchens refers to the group of participants who use kitchen facilities to prepare food together, not a kitchen site itself.

Benefits of Community Kitchens

    Participants of Community Kitchens have reported positive changes in:

  • Social skills - communication and interpersonal skills.
  • Teamwork and leadership skills - working with others, taking a leadership role.
  • Budgeting - writing shopping list, putting money aside, buying in bulk or on sale.
  • Cooking - learning new recipes, cooking techniques.
  • Shopping – saving money on food costs.
  • Greater motivation to cook at home and reduced intake of takeaway/fast food.
  • Access to food - increased availability of food, increased variety.
  • Literacy and numeracy.
  • Confidence and self esteem.

Community Kitchens in Australia

In 2003, a dietitian from Peninsula Health’s Frankston Community Health Service was awarded a Victorian Travelling Fellowship by the Department of Human Services and the Victorian Quality Council. This enabled her to undertake a study tour to Canada which included researching the Community Kitchens concept. Based on advice from Canadian facilitators and discussions with the reference group that was subsequently established in Frankston, elements were selected from the different Canadian models to suit the local community.

The first Australian Community Kitchens began in Frankston, VIC in 2004. Since then, many new Community Kitchens have started across the state of Victoria and other parts of Australia.

Where do they operate?

    Community Kitchens can operate in a variety of settings where there is an existing kitchen that is accessible to community members. Some examples are;

  • Neighbourhood Houses and Community Centres
  • Churches
  • Welfare organisations
  • Men’s Sheds
  • Service clubs
  • Schools

Who comes along?

    Community Kitchen groups are made up of people with a wide range of personal backgrounds. Many people are currently involved in Community Kitchens including;

  • People of all ages from primary school aged children to older persons
  • People with disabilities
  • Indigenous community members
  • People from migrant and refugee backgrounds
  • General community members

They are for anyone and everyone.

What is involved?

  • A group of people (6-8 usually) with common backgrounds or interests cooking healthy meals together on a regular basis. The groups usually cook on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly routine.
  • Group members have ownership and make all the decisions including when to cook, what recipes to cook, who will do the shopping and different cooking tasks.
  • Each group will generally cook 2-3 recipes in a cooking session. This will allow everyone to have at least one serve of each recipe; usually one main meal and one sweet/dessert.

The Facilitator

    The group is assisted by a facilitator who can be a member of the group or a volunteer or a paid worker (who may be from within the organisation that hosts the Community Kitchen). If possible, it is recommended to have more than one facilitator per Community Kitchen. The facilitator’s main role is to make sure the group goes along smoothly. They do this by;

  • Completing Community Kitchens training on food safety, group facilitation, nutrition and budgeting to support the running of the kitchens;
  • Helping the group develop a set of rules/guidelines that everyone agrees to follow;
  • Ensuring all new participants are welcomed and provided with adequate information about how the kitchen works;
  • Ensuring all participants actively participate in the planning and cooking processes to the best of their ability; and
  • Handling all the money and any associated paperwork (or delegating this to appropriate participants).

How does a Community Kitchen run?

    There are four basic elements involved with running a Community Kitchen;

  • planning;
  • shopping;
  • cooking; and
  • eating!

The following is a list of general rules for each of these elements but each Community Kitchen manages them differently to suit the different needs of the group.

    Planning:

  • Group members bring along recipes that they think would be good to cook in their kitchen. These can be from a range of sources such as recipe books, magazines or websites.
  • The group discusses the recipes and agrees on which ones they would like to cook. Groups normally choose a few recipes and put them into a timetable so that the planning process does not have to be done every session. They may decide to agree on enough recipes so that they know what they will be cooking for the next 3 or 4 sessions.
  • The group may choose to modify the recipes to make them cheaper or healthier. For example, the group may choose to use chicken instead of beef or to use margarine if the recipe calls for butter. Groups should try to choose recipes with ingredients that are on special or in season.
  • A shopping list is written up based on the ingredients required, taking into consideration items that are already in food pantry and items that people are willing to bring from home.

    Shopping:

  • The group decides on who will do the shopping for each session. It may be easier for two members to shop together.
  • Money for shopping can be collected before or after the shopping is done and members contribute equally.
  • The person doing the shopping sticks to the list and only purchases items for the Kitchen. Any personal shopping should be done separately.
  • Receipts should always be kept and stored appropriately at the Kitchen for future reference.

    Cooking:

  • At the start of the session, it is very important to set aside time to read through each recipe before tasks are delegated to each participant.
  • It is usually recommended that participants divide into small groups so they can take part in cooking a complete meal.
  • The facilitator should try to arrange it so that the same people are not doing the same tasks every week and that everyone gets a chance to try something different and develop new skills.

    Eating:

  • The group will either sit down to share a meal together or portion out the food into containers for each person to take home.
  • Any extra food is taken home by the participants for themselves or members of their household: it is NOT sold or given to other people.