After his year championing children’s right to nutritious food, footballer Marcus Rashford MBE has now joined forces with Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge to present FULL TIME: Get Cooking with Marcus and Tom. The programme hopes to improve people’s food knowledge and kitchen confidence, with cook-alongs creating proper, nutritious food with the kitchen equipment they have at home. Episodes will be posted weekly on Instagram.
FULL TIME is supporting the #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign launched by Marcus in September 2020, in partnership with his Child Poverty Taskforce. He has been instrumental in shining a spotlight on the grim reality of the 30% of children in the UK are living in poverty. With food-bank services reporting a 121% increase in need from children during the pandemic, Marcus and Tom are uniting to drive change at both a national and grassroots level.
"Following Government investment into Healthy Start it was important to me that we demonstrated the power in collaboration. We needed to come up with a creative project that really engaged children most in need, preparing them for what adult life has to offer, whilst also attracting all children to break down stigma around usage of the vouchers. This project is for every child and I really hope parents and carers will benefit from having a bit of valuable time together in the kitchen when family activity is heavily restricted by financial restraints. I’m proud of what we’ve done here, I’m thankful for Tom, thankful for the Child Food Poverty Task Force members, and I can’t wait to see what the response is."
- Marcus Rashford
This 12 month project aims to equip families with the skills to get the most out of Healthy Start vouchers, to maximise take-up of the vouchers and to eliminate the stigma felt by so many families as they struggle to feed their families well.
“Marcus and I are super proud to be working together to spread the message of how easy simple cookery can be, for even the most inexperienced of cooks. We don’t want you to be fighting with your kitchen, and we don’t expect you to have lots of equipment, you can still make great tasting, fun and filling food. Marcus has always been one to encourage life skills and cooking is a valuable skill that everyone can embrace and that will see you through the whole of your life. (Marcus even admitted to never peeling a carrot before, now he can!) If you can engage with food from the start, you can grow, develop and build your own collection of recipes, and enjoy cooking together.”
- Tom Kerridge
Follow the Instagram page @FullTimeMeals and, once the first video has launched, children and their families are encouraged to share their own cooking via Instagram using the hashtag #fulltimemeals.
