PKL Chief Executive Lee Vines congratulated the Friends House on their win and the Food Made Good Awards for promoting good practice

Tuesday, 10 October 2017

The Friends House Restaurant, winners of the Community Award at the Food Made Good Awards, has been congratulated by PKL, Britain’s leading temporary and modular kitchen infrastructure supplier.

The restaurant won the prestigious award, which was sponsored by PKL, at the 2017 Food Made Good Awards, the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s annual celebration of sustainability and good restaurant practice.

The Friends House Restaurant, based the at the central offices of the Quakers in Britain on London’s Euston Road, worked with the Douglas House Project to establish a social enterprise bakery for men with personality disorders.

The bakery gave men who had recently been released from prison or hospital the chance to learn how to create, bake, sell and deliver cakes and sweets. The restaurant helped many of them gain food hygiene qualifications and four are now paid apprentices at Friends House. The restaurant sells bread and cakes made by the men.

Friends House fought off tough competition from category runners’ up Bristol-based Friska and the Wheatsheaf, Chilton Foliat.

PKL's Ciaran Vaughan attended the awards ceremony on October 4th at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Hall in London and presented the award with the SRA's Vice President, (and new star of Bake Off), Prue Leith.

PKL Chief Executive Lee Vines congratulated the Friends House on their win and the Food Made Good Awards for promoting good practice and inspiring the next generation of caterers.

“We were delighted to support such a fantastic award, and warmly congratulate the winners,” he said. “Their work helps men with mental health issues and vitally raises awareness of the struggles men in their position can face. Using training of this kind to help give them structure and inspiration is both clever and sustainable and we applaud everything they are doing.

“The SRA is helping to promote good practice across the industry and we are delighted to work with it to promote and help it achieve its goals. Well done to the SRA and to all the nominees and winners.”

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Picture shows Ciaran Vaughan (left) with the Food Made Good Community Award winners Friends House Restaurant, SRA President Raymond Blanc and Vice President Prue Leith.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

PKL Company Overview

PKL Group is the UK’s leading supplier of modular commercial kitchens, serving a wide range of both public and private sector markets. With hundreds of temporary kitchens and 10,000 items of catering equipment available to hire, the company supports clients during refurbishments, emergencies and events.

PKL also offers a number of permanent modular kitchen solutions including high-spec commercial kitchen buildings which are delivered to site as pre-built modules, ready for quick installation. The company’s KitchenPod and Food Cube products have won various industry awards for innovation and have proven popular particularly in the education and leisure sectors.

In addition, PKL offers catering estate management solutions, as well as specialising in major event kitchen complexes such as those used to feed athletes at events such as the Olympic Games. The company’s international division also delivers a wide range of specialist kitchen solutions to sites all over the world, from African mining camps to Antarctic research stations.

Established in 1988, PKL’s head office is located in Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham. The company currently employs around 90 staff and has successfully completed over 10,000 temporary kitchen hires worldwide, as well as over 200 permanent kitchen installations.

If you have any queries about this press release, or about PKL and its projects, please contact PR and Marketing Exec Phil Scoble on 01242 663125 or email pscoble@pkl.co.uk.