Community champion

WINNER: Tony Evans of Can Cook, Liverpool

Chef Tony Evans left the world of restaurants when his first child was born, taking a huge pay cut to work at a children’s centre and start a community café there, teaching parents to cook basic dishes. That planted the seed for Can Cook, which Tony started with Robbie Davison, and the first project was teaching a group of 16 people how to cook basic dishes over the course of 10 weeks. “This was often the first time any of these people had cooked from scratch,” says Tony. “There was one lady, aged 75, who was a victim of domestic abuse and lived in a refuge. She had had a very hard life and had never cooked.”

Eleven years later and Can Cook has trained 13,000 people, and the business now has various strands and projects. Venturing into catering too, Can Cook now provides a fresh-food service for care and education settings across Merseyside, specialising in catering for children and older people. Tony says he believes that everybody should be able to access “good fresh food” and the aim is to tackle food poverty and create employment (it is a committed Living Wage employer, all staff are paid a minimum of £8.25 per hour).

This summer, Can Cook started a new pilot project called Holiday Hunger, providing around 700 meals each day for children who might not otherwise get a proper meal during the school holidays. It’s also started a project based on the old ‘meals on wheels’ system but taking the food to community centres. Tony says: “When I was a restaurant chef 10 years ago, I would have never predicted we would be doing this and it’s the hardest job I’ve ever done. But even when I get home and I’m on my knees because I’m so tired, the thought that we are helping to fight food poverty by feeding families, kids and old people fresh food when they might otherwise not eat, makes it all worthwhile. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for having the belief in what we do.”

Head judge Laura Rowe says: “While we had plenty of strong contenders in this category, for chefs who run their businesses with positive purpose, Tony’s unfailing and inspiring humanity, the impact he has had on his local community and the sheer scale of good deeds made him a clear favourite.”