Growing at The Grove

Growing Chefs! to open new programming space at The Grove

Photo: Growing Chefs! Ontario executive director, Andrew Fleet

FOOD EDUCATION DELIVERY program Growing Chefs! Ontario has announced it will open new programming space at agribusiness hub The Grove at Western Fair District.

According to the organization, the new space will help to address long project waitlists by significantly expanding The School Food Education Project to over 10,000 students annually.

“Growing Chefs! Ontario is passionate about improving food literacy and food education programming across Ontario,” says Andrew Fleet, executive director and co-founder of Growing Chefs!

“We are uniquely situated as a provincial food education leader due to our extensive experience designing and delivering curriculum linked, evidence-based food literacy programming as well as our innovative and self-sustaining business model. We believe our operational and financial model could be replicable across the province and help us to change the way we approach food literacy programming and help children, youth, families and the greater community learn about and develop healthy relationships with food.” 

Growing Chefs! Ontario is a registered charity based in London. For 12-plus years, it has been creating and providing hands-on cooking and food literacy programming for schools, children, youth and families. Its projects have been offered in partnership with over 100 schools and dozens of community organizations across London and area, reaching over 35,000 children and youth. 

“For some time our two organizations have collectively had a goal of reaching more students through our respective educational programming,” adds Greg Blanchard, Western Fair District’s communication director.

“A dream of eventually establishing an onsite education facility at The Grove at Western Fair District with the Growing Chefs! team has been on the vision board for a long time. We are so proud of Andrew and his team and what they have achieved so far, and we are looking forward to what can be achieved in agri-food education within the Grove.”