#310 Ellie Ledden Chef Educator at Prept - Empowering Future Generations Through Food Education

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What we know more and more of is that we are what we eat.

And the big food companies have been so powerful in their advertising in the supermarkets that we have whole generations of families that don't have access to that education about food.

And we're learning so much about our gut health being completely connected to our brain health, which is completely connected to our immunity.

So to reach kids at this kind of young age and to show them and help them understand that what they put in their body will exactly be helping them to be healthier, not just now, but actually as they go through life.

And if we can teach them these store cupboard ingredients that we can show them, but actually cooking from scratch, it's not complicated, it's not time consuming, it's just having a bit of knowledge about what we can put together from stuff in our fridge and in our cupboard, then we're going to see a very different generation grow up.

Today's guest is on a mission to transform how we think about food learning and the future of our young people.

In this episode, we speak with Eli Leddon, chef educator and passionate advocate for empowering the next generation through the power of cooking.

Ellie is part of the team at the Prepped Foundation, a bold initiative that is providing cooking is so much more than a life skill.

It's a tool of confidence, well being and creating healthy relationship with food.

With hospitals, especially kids in schools, we dive into Ellie's personal journey, the founding story behind Prepped and why teaching and cooking in schools and communities could be one of the most radical and essential educational tools of our time.

We explore the impact of food culture on young minds and how hospitality can reframe this and be part of this positive change of where we can change society to the better by educating people about food and ingredients.

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And if you believe hospitality can be a force for good in and far beyond our Kitchen and restaurant floors or hotel lobbies.

This episode is for you.

Get into it and become part of the change that is needed when it comes to food.

Be married.

Here at Hospitality Mavericks, we're all about how can we actually create an industry that not just makes profit but actually also make positive impact on people, community and society.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

How do we actually make impact and how do we actually make impact on our children's future and also at the current state of their life right now.

And I have Ellie with me here on the Prep foundation and we're going to go a bit on a journey to talk a bit about her journey, but also where the foundation has come from and actually what kind of impact they're doing today.

And we're going to explore some of the challenges and what role hospitality actually plays in this and actually how we actually can help young people to get skills to become better at cooking.

Welcome to the show, Ellie.

Thanks very much, Michael.

It's an honor to be here and.

Thank you so much for coming.

And we had a lovely intro from Natalie who thought that you will be a great guest.

And I totally agreed straight away when I saw what you guys was up to and the work you were doing and thought it would be so great to have a conversation about, you know, how are you changing the world?

Yeah, sounds good.

And let's start off with what has your journey been and how did you actually ended up in a foundation and how do you actually ended up with educating chefs in helping children to get better skills when it comes to cooking?

Well, I've been a chef for 25 years.

I have traveled a lot.

I have got a background in fine dining and private dining.

I've had my own private catering company for about 11 years.

The pandemic kind of destroyed that and I chose a different path and started studying nutrition.

And I was involved in quite a few kind of community projects with children, vulnerable groups and working with children on forest schools and helping them kind of cook and learn about food.

And I really felt like this was where I wanted my kind of like next, next stage of my career to be.

And I was doing, I've been involved in pop ups a lot through my career and I was working with the lovely ladies at Brighton Gin and we were using a beautiful produce from NEP estate and we had Kate Bradbury come and talk about the beautiful micro garden and I, we were kind of having a conversation about what charity shall we raise money for.

And Kathy from Brighton Gin said To me, do you know about prepped?

And I'd never heard of them.

And she started telling me, you know, what they do about educating children about food.

And like, instantly I said, but that's, that's who I need to go and work with.

That's what I.

That's what I need to do.

So we had a lady from prep, Sharon at the time, who came to do a talk at the Pop up and then she'd organized a meeting with Jess about a month later, and it kind of, it just snowballed.

Jess and I met and we just kind of went boom.

And then I had a job, so I was very happy about that.

And what is actually the big problem that the foundation solves?

So schools have lost a lot of funding over the years and the food tech kind of education is now very, very small in a lot of schools.

A lot of schools don't have food tech teachers.

They don't even have kitchens.

They might be learning from YouTube.

They're all on a rotation.

The resources are, they're small and they're finite.

So what Prepped is now doing, funded by the hospitality industry.

We are giving young people an opportunity to work with professional chefs, work with incredible produce that we get donated by our amazing partners.

We're showing them really cool kind of store cupboard recipes, showing them brilliant life skills and getting them kind of immersed in really fun food workshops.

And if you're a school, how does it work then?

Do you reach out to you or do you do the progressive work and going out, contacting your schools?

And how big is your reach now?

In principle, there's a bit of both going on.

We have a program manager who will kind of send emails to connect, make the first kind of connection.

And then, I mean, sometimes it's quite hard to kind of get those emails looked at because teachers are so busy.

So we're always trying to find new ways of kind of getting them to read the email.

But as soon as they meet us and we'll kind of like organize the teams, then, they're obviously incredibly keen for it because it's all funded.

You know, this is a free of charge prep program, so I'm the first kind of chef to come on board.

So already we're very strong in Sussex, but we already have a London chef on board.

We've got loads of London schools in the pipeline and the next places on the horizon are already Lancaster, Manchester, Birmingham, and the plan is to go nationwide.

So as you go out and, you know, do the teaching in the schools with the kids yeah.

What kind of impact does that do when you've been out doing that?

What does that leave them with?

Well, it's always incredibly exciting for me because we have these partners.

We have locally, we have Shrub and the menu partners, and they will donate all of the fresh produce so we can.

That's kind of what makes my job so exciting as well, because I have this incredible local, seasonal, very exciting produce to play with.

So the kids don't have to do anything.

All they have to do is turn up, and I arrive with a little bit of equipment and all this gorgeous, very colorful, exciting produce that the kids get an opportunity to play with.

So, you know, obviously, a lot of teenagers can kind of walk through the door, and they might have had a rubbish morning or a rubbish evening or a rubbish day before.

And one of our kind of big ethos is, you know, let's leave.

Let's leave everything, you know, the door, and let's come into this, and we'll show you what you can achieve.

You know, this is a really positive, mindful, immersive experience.

And I kind of go in and we pretend it's like a professional kitchen.

And I'm like, right, you're gonna call me Chef.

I'm gonna call you Chefs.

And they're all like, yes, Chef Pratt, Chef.

And every single one of these students, I. I find it so rewarding just talking about it.

They produce an amazing meal for themselves at the end of it.

So they might come in and they might kind of.

They might be acting quite shy, quite quiet.

Sometimes I'll get the really kind of shy ones up next to me, so I'll be kind of working with them, but every single one of them at the end has produced a beautiful meal, and they'll be so proud.

And we'll bring all these amazing little kind of garnishes and edible flowers and.

And I'll show them how to present it.

That's always a big part of it.

And they'll be just going like, chef, look at this, look at this, look at this.

And they're so proud.

And it's.

It's incredibly heartwarming.

And you can see what a positive impact that is made in that one, two hours, you know, and they'll go home.

For example, I'll do this kind of ramen recipe, and that's from Foods from Around the World lesson.

And I'll show them actually how healthy a very quick noodle recipe can be.

Rather than reaching for a pot noodle, reaching for, you know, a packet, a processed food from you know, the cupboard and to show them how easy it can be.

And at the end of it they're like, I'm never going to make instant noodles again.

It's, it's, it's powerful.

And how many sessions do you do with them?

Is that that one session or is there multiple touch points with the.

So the prep program consists of three in school sessions which are all funded and they'll.

I will choose with the teachers.

I'll kind of like design bespoke lessons around them.

We have a 10 lesson plan kind of that we've all written the secondary school program that we've written at Prepped.

And then I will design the bespoke lessons around what they need to learn because we're teaching, you know, year seven up to 11 and, and beyond.

So it needs to be, you know, it needs to be bespoke, it needs to supercharge the curriculum and enhance what they're learning already.

And so we'll have three sessions in school and in the fourth session they can come and do a farm to fork day at our Plumpton College, which is, we're in the agri food center and we have this amazing MasterChef style kitchen where they will come in and we'll split them into two groups.

One group will go around the farm, one group will make the pudding, split them again and then the other group will make lunch and then we'll all sit down and eat together and then they'll have this whole kind of understanding of, you know, the food on the farm and connecting it all to the food that's literally that we've made and they're eating.

So that's, that's pretty amazing.

And have you heard and talked with kids after they've been on this program for those, you know, three sessions you talk about do they, have you been out talking with them again, finding out what has happened with their connection with food and how they.

Yes.

So one thing that prepped are kind of like joining the link between the hospitality industry and schools and we're helping kind of with careers.

So for example, if I've kind of seen students kind of three times and then I see them at the farm to four can there's, there'll be often like one or two that are incredibly interested and you can see that, you know, they're really asking questions and they're like, oh, you might even say I want to be a chef.

But some do.

And then we will make sure that we stay connected, you know, and there's some big chefs and kind of restaurants that are creating apprenticeships for these students.

So we're, you know, one of our most important things is helping these students kind of, if they show an interest, is showing them the way and kind of opening doors to apprenticeships and work experiences and.

Yeah.

So we are constantly staying in touch with all these students.

And why is it like coming bigger back to the purpose?

Why is it then it's so vital that you do this work?

Because why?

What is it that we need in the world right now, our kids needs in the world right now?

Besides, of course there's no funding for it, so therefore it's great.

But how does it actually prepare them for the future?

Well, what we know more and more of is that we are what we eat.

And the, you know, the big food companies have been so powerful in their advertising in the supermarkets that, you know, we have, you know, whole generations of families that don't have access to that education about food.

And we're learning so much about our gut health being completely connected to our brain health, which is completely connected to our immunity.

So to reach kids at this kind of young age and to show them and help them understand that what they put in their body will exactly be helping them to be healthier, not just now, but actually kind of as they go through life.

And if we can teach them these, these store cupboard ingredients that we can show them that actually cooking from scratch is not, it's not complicated, it's not time consuming.

It's just having a bit of knowledge about what we can put together from stuff in our fridge and in our cupboard, then we're going to see a very different generation grow up.

And when you talk about that, because you talk about, you know, the marketing machine.

Is there any myth you have met on this way around what young people has and children have around food?

I, I think it's that cooking is hard.

People, you know, that there's this myth that cooking is complicated, that cooking, they can't do it.

Cooking is for other people.

Cooking is for rich people.

And that's one of the, one of the barriers we are breaking down is showing them that anybody can cook, that anybody can buy some cheap ingredients and anybody can make a meal from scratch.

Yeah, a healthy meal.

A healthy meal.

Yeah, absolutely.

A healthy meal.

Yeah.

And what happens with the schools?

You do this as well.

Have you actually been talking with the schools that's gotten through this program?

What kind of impact have they have had?

Like a school, maybe not the individual student, but like the school after engaging?

Well, that's we're still relatively young actually as a charity, so I've only kind of started with the schools from March this year.

So we're still kind of at the early stages.

But what we are seeing is that as soon as a school has had, you know, some students, a set of students that have had the prep to program, they immediately are booking us again.

So that we're kind of watching already that we just, as soon as we're kind of in a school we feel that actually we're just going to kind of keep staying there.

There's no way, there's no way they want us to leave.

It's like, well, we need the next kind of year sevens or the year eights or the year nines and then hopefully it just means we can kind of see these students all the way through school.

There's a lot of schools that we're working with asking us to come and cook with the kind of alternative provision kids, which is amazing because they're all off timetable and they can kind of just kind of fit in these two hour sessions quite easily.

And that's very rewarding.

We're finding the students having a, that's a really positive impact in there.

You know, they're turning up, they're coming to school, they're achieving great things.

So once we're in a school we'll find that we'll start doing other things within the school and we'll be helping with after school clubs or.

So there's so much that we can offer that we just kind of, we make a relationship with the school and then we're kind of with them then for the future.

And it's quite interesting from what you're saying that exactly the schools want this, but from a government point of view there's no access to this, there's no funding, there's no resource to make this happen.

But the school really knows this is important.

Absolutely.

And some, you know, all schools will have different kind of equipment or kitchen space or, but you know, there are no preps will have no barriers.

So if there's, if there's a school that doesn't even have a kitchen, you know, we'll go in and we'll bring some spiralizers and we'll bring some mixing bowls and we'll make some like cool Vietnamese style Asian salad or you know, there's, there's always a way for us to do some kind of cool healthy food workshop.

Whatever equipment they have will make it work.

Oh, and that's incredible.

That's incredible.

What is the role then of you talked a bit about hospitality, you know that the hospitality might get some talent out of that in the future.

People really want to be something within food which is getting harder and harder.

Everybody talks about there's not enough chefs.

And I think that's a global issue.

It's not a UK issue, it's a global issue on different levels.

What is the role of hospitality can play in this and where can chef play in, where can hospitality businesses play in actually to be part of this and be part of the impact?

Well we are kind of mainly funded by the hospitality industry and we are lucky enough to have some incredible chefs, kind of big name Michelin starred chefs.

We, we have these chefs kind of like donating their time.

We have Actar Islam is, we have Tom Shepard, we have Kim Ratcha Rowan and these chefs are coming on board and they're donating their time and we're putting on these kind of these big events that then they can sell to, you know, the richer, the richer end.

And then all of this money goes directly to our teaching and we have got the, all these brilliant restaurant partners.

So in Brighton we've got Wild Floor and Jalisco and Nukma, we've got Hyde in London.

And these restaurants will put a kind of voluntary pound donation on their bill.

So that is literally like an amazing income that we can get which again goes directly to our teaching.

So any kind of restaurant like Chef, they can all very easily kind of get on board like that.

And that kind of also helps educate anyone who's going into that restaurant showing them what we're doing.

You know it kind of makes such, it creates such a big impact to kind of share what we're doing and.

I guess you want more of those.

Just a shout out to people out there if there's anyone thinking they could come and help.

Absolutely, yeah.

Anybody.

Share chefs, the astrons and what, and also what we're doing is any, any, any kind of body in the hospitality industry we love to connect with because we also bring these industry members kind of into the, into the sessions to show the students that actually it's not just being a chef.

You know, there's so many different roles.

You could kind of go down or take food producer or bar manager or barista or you know there's so many levels in the hospitality industry to show them actually this, this is a career that you could choose and just to kind of like just to help link it all.

And if we had to convince for people and said let's dream big And I don't know what the vision is for, for prep, then you can maybe put it in there as well.

The mission or the vision you have, you probably have no, no borders, but everybody could get access to this.

Any community could access this kind of training.

What would that mean for society and hospitality?

Well, if every community could have access to the PREP program to show and educate kids, you know, to share, to show them how to cook food, share food, learn about healthy food, this impact could be so huge.

This could change, you know, the health of the next generation.

This could stop obesity.

This is the aim, you know, stop obesity and diabetes and cardiovascular disease and ultimately, you know, mental health and depression.

You know, this, we.

Everything that we eat is directly related to, you know, these lifestyle diseases.

And if we can educate kids and show them actually a healthy way to be, this, this could, this could change, change a nation's health, really.

Yeah.

And ugly.

It comes back to.

We talked a bit about before we started where I say, like, hospitality's role going forward is of course to make a profit and all those things, but actually it's really solving really hard things and things like this is really hard.

And a lot of people say this is impossible.

You can't produce food at this cost.

All those things.

Actually, there's the reason why we need to go and do it.

Exactly.

We have to make it worse.

Producing good food and everybody should have equal access to a healthy meal and nobody should go hungry to bed and nobody.

And you can only do that by education, you know, it's the way.

Absolutely, yeah.

What is the big goal for prep the next, in five years time?

What have we seen then?

Where are we then with the journey?

Well, in the short time that I've been at prepped, which is since February, we already have the London chef.

We have three more kind of counties on the horizon.

And ultimately I think we want to be nationwide.

We'd like to be in every school.

We'd like the prepped program to be rolled out so that actually it becomes something that everyone, everyone receives.

And it's not, it's not exclusive to any one part of the uk.

You know, everybody receives this food.

Immersive education.

Love it, love it.

And that doesn't sound unrealistic if you already are moving into some very big areas of the London and Lancashire, as you mentioned as well.

Yeah, yeah.

It does feel very exciting because like you say, you hadn't, you hadn't heard of it and then I hadn't heard of it and then as soon as I heard of It.

That's it.

I was like, that's it.

I want to jump on board and be involved in it.

And it seems to have that kind of effect on people.

You know, if you're passionate about this ethos, then people want to get on board.

And I think that's why we have all these amazing chefs kind of wanting to help us and all these amazing restaurants and, and some of these big companies are like, you know, well, we'll sponsor.

We'll sponsor a school or, you know, we actually have a very cool event happening in March next year, March 2, which is a boxing event, where Dan and Jess, who are amazing co founders, have managed to persuade all these amazing chefs to box against each other for charity.

And Dan has actually been in training and we'll be training to box against some chefs.

I think the Brighton chef who.

We've got Michael Bremner, we've got Jason Atherton.

So we got some really big names and we kind of love doing these big.

These big events because obviously they do.

They do kind of like raise us quite a lot of money, but it's such.

It's also such fun, so to kind of get the prep name out there as well.

And that's a.

That's a great thing to, to join up to as well, I guess if you want to go and box and, and part of the event or just come and watch.

Just come and watch, yeah.

And contribute.

What is that?

And this.

You've been on this journey very, you know, for, you know, reasonable short time, I would say.

It seems like it's going very fast and.

But what has been the thing you're most excited about right now?

What is happening right now that makes you super excited, really?

Honestly, every single teaching session I go to, I get so excited about.

I wake up early in the morning.

I'm like, super planning it.

Like I talked about with the produce, you know, from Shrub and the menu partners.

That really makes my job very exciting because I can turn up with all this seasonal stuff that's organic, biodynamic, and, you know, and I can talk all about these amazing ingredients.

And the thing with kids is, like, you never know what you're going to get.

You never know what session is going to be like.

And I find it very exciting to connect with the kids on this level of food and just kind of become an equal with them and, and just all produce this amazing food together.

Like, that honestly excites me every single day.

That's great.

So you're getting a boost every day.

That's not like a specific thing coming up.

It's like that thing being able to go and make that 1% impact every day.

Joining this journey, which is very different from the rest of your journey.

You know, you've been a chef, run your own businesses, which we all know takes a lot of toll and can sometimes be almost mission impossible in our industry.

But what has been your biggest, most significant learning over the last couple of years as you have been.

Well, I've always been very interested in healthy food, nutrition.

You know, all of my, all of my food has always been very focused on food to make you feel good.

That's what my business was all about.

I've always been into fermenting and I think being on my nutrition journey and learning more and more about the guts integral role in our health, it just probably blows my mind all the time.

Like I'm constantly learning about that and I think that that's very involved in what we're teaching.

So probably the importance of the gut, you know, is, is, is very significant to me.

And the last couple of years it's just kind of just, it's just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Yeah, I, I remember those couple of things.

I.

The God Makeover is a book called the God Makeover.

I read about seven years, seven, eight years ago.

It pushed me at that point in an erection.

And then, you know, one of the latest book I read is Tim Spector's book.

Oh yeah, I love Tim Spector.

Yeah.

Or number of his books.

But Food is Life, I think it's called one I'm thinking about read last year and that made a significant impact as well.

And understanding the, how little we know about what we put in our body and polyphenos and how important it is to get at least 30 different colored vegetables.

30 different.

Yeah.

And I, I try and kind of like explain that to the kids and they're like, wow, can you do that?

But actually it's not, it's not that hard like with, you know, there's all, all spices count and it's just, it's the diversity, isn't it?

Because you know, 10 years ago people were like, oh yeah, I'm just going to eat kale and then I'm going to be really, really healthy.

It's like, no, no, that's not going to do it.

You need so much diversity.

And I'm just, I'm so fascinated by it and I love talking and teaching the kids and yeah, so that's, that's pretty big for me.

How well does actually you know, the chef community knows about these things when they think about the food they preparing or developing.

Is it.

Is it well known or is it impossible financially to do it, or do you think it's lack of education?

Again, I think it really depends on the style of restaurant, you know, and I think, I think it's becoming pretty widely known in the restaurant world.

But I would say it's probably.

It's probably not the most important thing still, like in fine dining, because, you know, there's so many other variables that actually want to be achieved.

They might not be kind of like constantly chasing that kind of gut root, but at the same time, I think knowledge has become so much bigger now.

Like, fermented foods are.

Are everywhere now.

And I think chefs are playing a lot with lots of fermented kind of syrups and, like, I think, I think that's blown up hugely and that.

That's really exciting for the restaurant world.

Yeah.

And I guess also that's a way of actually introducing a lot of interesting vegetables into people's diets.

We can ferment them as well because they are very powerful when you prevent them.

And I went learning fermenting, it's about 10 years ago, and it's, It's a great skill.

Yeah.

And as soon as you get it.

Yeah.

You can take all your leftovers from the fridge and put it.

You can do that in a restaurant.

Leftovers from the fridge.

I love that.

I love all the vegetables.

Not everything.

Not the milk vegetables.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah.

And when you enter a roll with it.

Yeah.

And actually.

And then you have it all the time and you eat.

And I've actually had a period where I've not been so good at being into a role, so you just reminded me I need to go back.

Oh, there we go.

Get my fermentation going again.

Because then you always get your spoonful a day.

Yeah.

And then I think Tim Spector says that you need a.

Eat a spoonful.

Three.

Three different, three different types of fermentation.

So, you know, cheese.

Cheese is fermented.

You know, like they're talking about Marmite being fermented.

You know, there's so many.

There's so many things, you know?

Yeah.

What if you were like, you're listening to this and you were like, oh, I would love to dive into the whole God hell thing.

What.

What would you go and study and read as the first thing from, from.

Your journey for this right now, Tim?

The Tim Spector book would be a great start.

I think the Zoe podcasts are Very, very interesting.

Yeah.

Very, very interesting.

And almost scary sometimes.

Yeah, they can be a bit scary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they're very informative.

And if you can stomach it, start making your own kefir, because that will, you know, that will.

That will really help you every single day.

Do you learn the kids these things as well?

Like around fermenting?

We do do have a sustainability kind of shop where we.

We kind of wait, we talk about it, but because we're not there with them all the time, it's quite hard to kind of get them to look after any fermented products.

But we do.

We talk about it a lot.

And, yeah, it's a big part of the conversation.

You have a lot of energy, there's no doubt about that.

And one of the things that the Mavericks is all about is the passion they have for something, the mastery they're seeking in it, and they are.

They find these energy levels to go and do it even when it's impossible.

Yeah.

And when you don't feel like it, how do you show up, like, in the best version of yourself every day?

Well, like I say, I'm always very enthusiastic and passionate about what I'm about to do.

So I'll be really excited about my recipe that I probably, you know, thinking about in my head at night as well.

I'll have my kefir in the morning, I'll have a really great coffee, and I'll have a cold shower, and then I'm ready to go.

And you said earlier you also, you lived nearby the ocean.

You live in the.

On the south coast, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

In the winter as well.

Oh, yeah.

All the way through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you have, like, some routines that actually keeps you in check in a kind of way.

Yeah.

And that makes me feel good.

Yeah.

And therefore you would like sometimes, even if it's hard, you got to go and do.

But it helps you doing something that's so purposeful as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it does.

Impactful every day.

What is the best?

Because I have to ask you, because you're a chef, actually, when I throw in a question I didn't share with you before, because what is the best, you know, food, hospitality, experience you've had in your whole life, what was it and what made it that experience?

That is a really good question.

When I was training with John Molnar, I worked for a chain called the Fat Cat Cafe.

And then John Molnar had been at the Savoy.

He came to kind of start the fine dining side.

And I was so Passionate about joining him because he was so, so talented and his knowledge was just insane.

And I just wanted to, I wanted to learn from him.

And we were all taken to chamonix for a 10 year anniversary for, for the restaurant and I was lucky enough to go and we were allocated some, a certain amount of money for the wine in the restaurant and loads of other people on the table, they would kind of like just getting loads of wine and just like, oh yeah, let's just spend it all on lots of cheap bottles of wine.

And John was like, no, no, no, no, no, Ellie, no, no, no, no.

What we're gonna do, okay, is we're gonna spend it all on one bottle of Chateau Nerf.

To Pat, I was like 22 or something and I was like, okay, okay, that sounds amazing.

And he said, and we're just gonna get this one cheese and it's gonna be Rob Lechon.

And I was like, okay.

And I just, I just remember this Seminole and just choosing this quality of cheese and quality of wine and having them together and that whole experience together with this person, with all this knowledge, it was quite, it was quite a seminal point in my life and my career.

And yeah, that was, that was pretty special.

And it's quite, quite interesting.

It's quite simple choices he made, but they were a very good quality.

Less, but better.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah.

Love it.

I absolutely love it.

And it's a great story as well.

By the way.

That question was one Natalie asked me when she interviewed me.

Oh yeah?

Was it?

And now I sometimes ask the guests as well.

It's a good one.

It's a good one, especially on the spot because you're like, oh yeah.

And often it fits in somewhere and it actually fitted in very well.

But my next question to you is like, what is the one question you wish to have asked you?

What would it be?

And what would you have answered?

Well, it's probably going to be how can anybody listening support us?

That's a good one.

And that's what we need so much of.

And if they go to the prepped www.prepped.foundation, they can link up with us, they can find us on LinkedIn, they can find us on Insta and they can sponsor us.

They can sponsor a school or they can become a partner.

You know, we, we just need as much help and support as we can possibly get so that we can just keep growing, keep teaching, keep reaching kids.

That would be amazing.

You had mentioned sponsoring the school a couple of times.

What does it Cost to sponsor a school, just to get a grip.

That is a really good question that I don't think I can answer exactly right.

I don't want to get that wrong.

But to sponsor a school, for example, that will give the school the prepped program for one set of students.

So the three in school sessions, the farm to fork is heavily subsidized.

Subsidized, but costs £300 for 30 kids.

But yeah, to sponsor a school that's giving one set of students three in school in school sessions with a.

With a prep chair.

But it's not a.

It's definitely manageable.

That's what I can hear as well.

Yeah, local companies, local companies will kind of choose a school and that's.

That's.

Yeah, often I will kind of go into schools.

Yeah.

Good, good.

And in a huge impact, as you said before, where can people find out more about all the things you've shared here on the show today and how can they connect?

If they want to connect with you or the foundation, how do they do that in the best possible way?

Yeah.

So go, go to the website.

The website has everything on there.

It has all of our social media links on there.

Www.prep.foundation.

it will have all of the links for all, all of our chefs.

Program manager, the co founders, Jess and Dan.

We've got Camilla, Harriet, we've got Luke on there.

So the team's growing and all of our details are on there.

So whoever you want to contact in pret, you can love it.

Love it.

Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm sending you and the team power and energy.

I love Journey.

It's so important what you do and we hope that the message here will be shared.

And if you're listening and you think this is important, please share, share, share in your network.

Every little matters, every little count.

Little by little, a little becomes a lot, as they say.

I like that.

Thanks very much for having me.

You're welcome.

I really appreciate that you are listening, listening in.

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