Upmarket retailer Waitrose will become the first UK supermarket operator to open a cookery school, when it opens a facility above its Finchley Road outlet in October.

The 4,600 sq ft cookery school will comprise a theatre, teaching area, dining area, bar and kitchen. It will create 16 new jobs, including highly skilled chefs, the firm said today (2 July).

The school will offer a range of cookery classes including sessions on particular cuisine styles like Indian or Italian as well as offering skills-based courses like butchery, baking and knife skills. It will also use the space to train its specialists that work in its branches.

Waitrose executive chef, Neil Nugent said: This exciting new venture for Waitrose echoes the strong appetite for food education as a result of the growth of celebrity chefs and food programming, coupled with the lack of nutrition education since it was removed from the National Curriculum in 1984. We want to inspire the nation to move from just watching cookery programmes to actually cooking and experimenting with new ingredients.”

 

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