Your group no doubt serves the community brilliantly, and has an incredible impact on the people it works with. You might also be able to deepen your connection to the area and amplify the effect of your work by collaborating and partnering with other local groups and suppliers.

Choosing local suppliers and partners

Functional things like buying ingredients might not feel relevant to your outreach and community building, but it certainly can be.

Where possible, finding, using, and building relationships with local suppliers can help to strengthen the local economy, increase the impact of your work, and grow your role in the community by supporting local businesses and jobs.

When it comes to your everyday work, it can be easy to focus just on what you’re doing, and when it is busy, forget to consider how other groups or organisations could fit in to the picture. There could be expertise that you share with other groups, and initiatives that you are running that could be complementary, and working closely could unlock a lot of potential for your own team members and the community that you serve.

Exchanging facilities

You can achieve more with less by making some arrangements with suppliers or other groups. For example, you might let an allotment society use your kitchen for group cookery sessions using their ingredients, and in exchange get some produce, or access to some space to grow your own.

A supplier of food or ingredients might be interested in branching out to baking or cookery lessons, in which case your kitchen could be a perfect venue. In return, they may offer discounts or payment in kind.

Of course, that sort of arrangement is only attractive if your kitchen is desirable. An unhygienic, unattractive, or poorly equipped space won’t draw many users, and if that describes your kitchen, it may be time to renovate.

To make a communal kitchen beautiful as well as functional, you need a design that works in the environment. In terms of materials, the most strong, durable, versatile semi-commercial carcass is Zintec polyester powder-coated mild steel (Steelplan). It is hygienic by design, and allows a range of colours that can fit the character of your community.

You could also opt for the Robust Woodplan variant wooden carcass kitchen. A wooden design for a shared community kitchen should be certified for heavy use by the Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA), and use a tongue-and-groove glued assembly system that interlocks along the length of assembled sides, eliminating the weak spots created by screws.

To discuss further what kind of kitchen would suit your community group, email [email protected] or call 020 8254 0090, and our friendly team will be happy to advise. If you would like, they can also discuss your plans for the kitchen and provide a free-of-charge 3D virtual tour so that you could see the possible renovation in situ.