Dean Russell visited The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK to learn more about the great work that they are doing to serve our community by providing nutritious meals. Having visited the site last year, Dean returned to catch up with the team and to see how their service has adapted after many months of restrictions.
Founded in India in the year 2000, Akshaya Patra is one of the world’s largest NGO-run meal programme. They have received multiple awards in recognition of their great work, including the National Award for Child Welfare in India in 2016, and the BBC’s Global Food Champion Award in 2019.
Working in partnership with the UK charity ‘God Is My Silent Partner’ (GMSP), Akshaya Patra set up a kitchen in Watford in 2020 which can produce up to 9000 meals a day, while also being both zero-carbon and zero-waste. By using the latest technology, they work to ensure that each meal has the components required to be both delicious and form part of a balanced diet for those receiving them.
After his visit, Dean said: “I was pleased to visit The Akshaya Patra Foundation again. The volunteers are a great example of Watford’s community working together and they are a real asset to our town. What I really love is the focus on the meals being nutritious, yet they are still able to produce such impressive quantities.”
A spokesperson for Akshaya Patra said following the visit: “It was a pleasure to have Dean Russell visit us today. It was great for us to be able to show him our new state-of-the art kitchen and to tell him about the important work that we have been doing to provide thousands of vulnerable people with meals which are freshly prepared, hot, vegetarian and above all nutritious.”
You can find out more about the important work that The Akshaya Patra Foundation is doing by visiting their website: https://tapf.org.uk/
