We're developing our outbuilding that we use for New Scot-led cooking workshops and events, and now that the work is completed to renovate the main fabric of the building, we'd like to install solar panels on the roof to help power the building. This will keep our running costs affordable, meaning that we won't have to pass those costs on to our customers, keeping the cooking workshops accessible for a range of participants and encouraging the community to come together to share food and stories
Description
Sprout Social Kitchen is a social enterprise with a mission to bring people together over good food and good conversation. We're radical about our values, working through food to connect with people who are often excluded from opportunities due to challenges in their life, barriers to accessing support and stigma around asking for help. We believe that big things can come from a small beginning and we're here to make that happen by investing the profits from our cafe, catering and workshops into employability programmes and wraparound support for the people who need it the most.
We are a sustainability-focused business in all senses of the word, with a plant-based menu as standard in our cafe and strong connections to local producers in a 30 mile radius who supply us with 90% of our seasonal produce. Our catering arm has enabled us to add an electric van to our team, and you'll see Sprout 1 heading out to events across Ayrshire with locally-sourced, healthy and tasty food for weddings, corporate events and pop ups. Our Little Sprout food growing and cooking pilot with local schools is going from strength to strength, and we're excited to welcome our first hospitality and catering Modern Apprentice later this year.
We've recently completed the renovation of an outbuilding at our site, transforming it into a bright training kitchen space, where we'll move our popular cooking workshops. Our workshops are led by New Scots who bring a variety of experiences - and cuisines - with them, and our cooking workshops not only allow them to gain important work experience in the UK and develop their networks and confidence, but also are an opportunity for local people to engage with someone who has come to North Ayrshire in very challenging circumstances, and have the space to build a connection with a person, not a headline.
The final stage of our renovation is to install solar panels on our workshop space, which will enable us to keep our workshops affordable, generating a percentage of the energy we are using during our classes, and selling any surplus to the grid to offset other costs. We're seeking match funding from the Climate Fund towards the cost of the solar panels, with our crowdfunding campaign contributing the remaining 50% of the cost. We want to continue to lead the way for what 'good business' means in North Ayrshire, and the solar panels on our teaching space are another example of how the sustainable choice is often the right one, both ethically and financially.
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