Top restaurants in the city have jumped aboard a £2 ‘Meal for Manchester’ campaign to help those in food poverty across Greater Manchester.
Hawksmoor, Escape to Freight Island, Tampopo and the Ducie Street Warehouse are among the first to sign up to the initiative, devised by chef Mary-Ellen McTague’s non-profit organisation Eat Well MCR.
The restaurants will include a ‘£2 meal’ option on their menus for customers to buy when they’re ordering.
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All of the money will then go directly to Eat Well, which uses chefs and restaurant kitchens across the city to cook meals for those who need it most.
The organisation has already supplied a staggering 56,000 free meals since launching during the first lockdown, and hopes to hit 100,000 this year.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, McTague, who runs The Creameries in Chorlton and has appeared on the Great British Menu, said: “It’s a really straightforward way to help out.
“There’s so much good will, and there are so many people who really want to help in the hospitality industry. And it’s super easy for the restaurants, and it means they can get to be part of this big, brilliant thing, this collective.
“There’s loads of visibility about where your money is going. We show the meals going out on social media a lot, we talk about the recipients, so there’s a real direct connection between the action you’re taking and the results. It’s very local.”
It’s hoped that more restaurants will come on board following the likes of high profile operators Hawksmoor and Tampopo getting involved, both of whom have let Eat Well use their kitchens and chefs from when the organisation first started in March, 2020, as lockdown found catering staff without customers to cater for.
Initially, McTague and her co-founders Gemma Saunders and Kathleen O'Connor began by organising and distributing free meals for staff on NHS wards.
But it quickly grew from there, bringing in other restaurant operators and retailers to sell food boxes and meal kits through the non-profit’s website, with the proceeds all going back in to making meals.
Among those who offered their support were the likes of the Cloudwater Brewery, which lets Eat Well use its premises for distribution, Dishoom, Elite Bistros, Honest Crust, Australasia, Erst and Where The Light Gets In.
“We team up with charities who work with vulnerable people,” McTague goes on. “Like Shared Health Foundation who are a group of doctors and paediatricians who work with homeless families living in temporary accommodation.
“These families often fall between the cracks, and one of the gaps for them is nutrition. The family may only have a kettle or a microwave in the room, no fridge, no access to cooking facilities, so they’re surviving on things you can heat up in the microwave or make with a kettle.”
They also work with the Ronald McDonald House charity, providing meals to parents and families who are in hospital with long-term sick children at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
She goes on: “£2 is approximately what it costs us to get one meal out to the community. With that we can buy ingredients, package them and distribute them, so your £2 means someone who needs one is getting a nice meal, made by a chef using nice ingredients.”
More information about Eat Well MCR, and details of how restaurants can sign up. can be found at their website.
