Meet the Mancunian - Talking reducing food waste and combating climate change with Corin Bell

Meet the Mancunian-6.3-Corin Bell transcript

Intro

Hello and a warm Mancunian welcome to all my incredible listeners out there.

I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your friendly host, and you've just tuned into the sixth season of the Meet the Mancunian podcast where I share remarkable social impact stories from the heart of Manchester every Tuesday throughout the season.

This podcast is a celebration of the unsung heroes, the change makers and the passionate souls who are making a real difference in our vibrant city. From social enterprises to non-profits and community groups, I bring you the voices of worker bees and volunteers all coming together for a common cause.

Through heartfelt conversations, my guests share their experiences, dreams, and unwavering commitment to making a difference. From the challenges they've overcome to the triumphs that fuel their passion, their stories will leave you moved, enlightened and brimming with hope.

Join me on this audio adventure as my guests and I explore the transformative power of collective action. And the remarkable impact we can create when we unite for a common cause. The tales are a testament to the power of community, collaboration, and the indomitable Mancunian spirit. They not only address pressing issues right here in Manchester but also offer insights and inspirations that resonate far beyond these boundaries.

Whether you're commuting, on a run or just relaxing at home. I invite you to tune in on Apple, Spotify, Google, or any of your favourite podcasting platforms. You can also log onto my website www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. Let's embark on this journey of discovery and inspiration.

For all my new listeners, you can catch up on the incredible stories from the first five seasons at www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. where you'll also find out more about my own journey as a podcaster. And to all my returning listeners, I can't thank you enough for your support. You make this podcast possible and I'm immensely grateful.

So join me as I continue to share these inspiring tales of change and community support from the beating heart of Manchester. Together, we can spread a bit of good news, spark meaningful conversations, and inspire positive action. Thank you for being a part of the Meet the Mancunian community.

Welcome to the third episode of season six of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester.

Passionate about addressing food waste, we hear from Corin Bell, Executive Director, Open Kitchen in this episode.

Episode 6.3

[00:03:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Corin Bell, Executive Director, Open Kitchen. Thank you so much, Corin, for taking the time on a Tuesday.

[00:03:08] Corin Bell: Great to be here.

[00:03:10] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Tell us first about how you found your passion for addressing food waste. Where did that come from?

[00:03:15] Corin Bell: I honestly couldn't tell you. It's lifelong. I think for me, I love food. I love to eat. I love cooking. I love going out to restaurants. I love trying new food. I've always been very adventurous around food, and I think for me it's just one of those absolutely and completely fundamental things.

It's essential for life. It's how we show care. Literally at the very start of your life, if you are lucky and well cared for, you are breastfed. It's how we care for our young, and it's how we gather. It's how we celebrate. Food for me is the absolute essence of community as well.

Inside and outside of work, I just spend a lot of my time thinking about food.

[00:04:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's really nice. And you're right, food is a great connector and like you said, it's about nurturing, but it's also about warmth and hospitality and celebrations together and feeling sad together sometimes.

That is true. I am a foodie myself and I used to run a food network in Saudi Arabia. We got together to try different restaurants. It was called Riyadh Vegetarians and Friends, so it was encouraging people to experiment with vegetarianism, which wasn't a very popular concept there, but we had a lot of people who used to come and try. So, it's nice.

[00:04:36] Corin Bell: Amazing.

[00:04:37] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Tell us about how you got involved with Open Kitchen and what does it do?

[00:04:42] Corin Bell: Open Kitchen is a social enterprise. It's my baby. I founded it with a group of friends, colleagues, campaigners, and it's been through a few iterations. What started as a little project has developed into a trading company with community aims and community support operations.

And what we do is work with a huge range of food businesses to intercept perfectly edible, beautiful food that is going to go to waste. And we also buy ingredients and everything we buy supports the sustainable food future that we want to see. We use super short supply chains. We support a lot of small, local, sustainable producers.

Products that are coming from further afield are as sustainable and as ethical as we can find them. So, things like coffee beans and the hope is this mix of ingredients is highlighting some of the problems with our current global food system. Food waste being a massive one, and also hopefully demonstrating some of the solutions.

Local, seasonal, organic, sustainably produced, less and better meat and dairy, all of these things. And with that crazy ever-changing mix of ingredients, we run an events catering business, and we also run a cafe and bar in the city centre based at the People's History Museum, and we're the in-house caterer at the People's History Museum.

So that leads us to do everything from basic, you're a company and you've got a workshop, you've got a meeting and you want, just a simple sandwich platter through to canopies and fizz events, weddings, product launches, cool street foodie events, just the entire spectrum.

And the wonderful part about it is I have this basically wizard level team of chefs who play the biggest game of ready, steady cook you have ever seen in your life, because no one plans for waste. So, they never know what's coming on that side. And then when we're buying, we're still looking at what's seasonal, what's local? We don't just contact our suppliers and say, I want this.

We negotiate with our suppliers and they're more like partners. So sometimes our local sustainable veg growers will get in touch and say, we've got a glut of this. Do you guys want to buy it? And we'll do you a deal, 'because otherwise we're not going to sell it all and we'll work with them.

So, it's literally a movable feast. It's constantly changing.

[00:07:21] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That must make some very interesting dynamics when you are pitching to people or telling them you're going to have, let's say this nice meal and you don't know what the ingredients are. How do you have fixed menus? How do you work?

[00:07:36] Corin Bell: We always say our menus are more like frameworks. So, the really basic example you're a company and you want to order lunch and you want a sandwich platter with a couple of carb based salads and a couple of fresh vegetable based salads. Your standard daytime cold mix buffet deal.

We call it a working lunch and we'll say to the group, how many people are we feeding? How many veggies, how many vegans? Does anyone have any allergies? And then within that information, we'll say your sandwich platter will involve at least three delicious freshly made sandwich fillings. And we'll do two varieties of a nice carb-based salad. And it might be potatoes, it might be rice, it might be pasta. And we'll do two varieties of a nice vegetable-based salad, but I can't tell you any more than that. We find there are some groups that we don't suit, and that's fine.

But we tend to find actually the companies and the groups and the people that like us are younger. Our menu will be different every time. You'll never get bored. Everything's freshly prepared. Every menu is bespoke. Every menu is invented for the group that it's going to. So, there's a bit more thought and consideration, I think, goes into it, which is also one of the things I love about food. I think you can tell when it's been prepared with some care and consideration.

[00:09:02] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: At the People's History Museum, is that all days the week?

[00:09:06] Corin Bell: We're open seven days a week and we do a breakfast menu every day. One of the things that we have learned is people don't particularly like to get adventurous with breakfast. Our breakfast menu stays roughly the same. It does change with the seasons, we buy, for example, higher welfare, pasture for life, British breakfast meats. You can't get away with opening a cafe in Manchester City Centre without doing, an egg butty, a bacon butty, a sausage butty, a vegan sausage butty.

The breakfast venue was a little bit more fixed, but then the lunch menu, we do a mixture of small plates and what we call big and hearty plates. And the menu is changing every single day. And it's just how hungry are you and what you are in the mood for. And we do some sandwiches and some salads. We do some grab and go options, but they're always changing based on what we can stop from going to waste. And what is seasonal, local, beautiful that we can show off.

[00:10:10] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. And how long has Open Kitchen been going for in its various iterations?

[00:10:16] Corin Bell: It was the beginning of 2016 really when we got going. I think the actual organisation the company was formed probably beginning of 2015. And then building relationships with food businesses, building that trust, that being able to intercept took a little while.

And then we finally got some chefs in 2016, and then we've been through just a real kind of learning, trying, failing, living through, trying again, adapting process. And we've done pop-ups, supper clubs. We did a pop-up cafe, a trial cafe at the top end of Oxford Road.

And that was open for just shy of a year. And then we started the catering business and that'd been going for about 18 months. And then the pandemic hit. So, trying to run an events catering business in the middle of a pandemic is not really a thing. So we ended up, being quite quickly co-opted as part of Manchester City Council's emergency food response.

So we saw out a good portion of the pandemic, basically running a giant Meals on Wheels service, which was never part of my business plan. But it kept everyone employed. We had ridiculous amounts of people who'd been furloughed from the food, drink and hospitality sector who came and volunteered with us.

And I think at the height of that activity, we were producing about 14,000 meals a week for vulnerable people. Then coming out of the pandemic People's History Museum got in touch with us and asked if we would be interested in tendering for the cafe.

Obviously, they'd been shut down by the pandemic. And they got in touch with us and said, when we relaunch the People's History Museum, we'd like to relaunch with a food and drink partner that really shares our values and shares our ethics. And one of the things that they were looking for was a food and drink partner who was a real living wage employer.

And paying a real living wage is still shockingly rare in food, drink and hospitality, it's getting a lot better, but it is classically a sector where there's poor wages, there's poor conditions, there's terrible working hours. And also just the tricky ways that contracts are formed.

You'll have a full-time general manager or a full-time head chef and there'll be a contracted number of hours in there. But actually, the expectation is always that person will just stay until the job's done. So you might have, for example, a head chef or an exec chef who is technically on a really good salary.

But when you break that down, when you divide that between the number of hours a week that person is working, actually they're probably not getting much more than a sort of basic minimum or real living wage, which is not fair considering how hard some of these people work.

[00:13:19] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Of course. Thank you for sharing that.

What are the challenges you faced on this journey? The pandemic must have been a challenge, but are there others that you've had to overcome? You talked about needing to meet the right partners and that taking you some time.

[00:13:34] Corin Bell: I'm honest, the whole thing is really tricky because you're constantly fighting. a system. And we are trying to demonstrate something really different. You are put at a constant disadvantage by a very unfair system.

So you've got big businesses that are sourcing ingredients as cheaply as they possibly can that are not looking at their supply chains that are just producing as much food as they possibly can, as cheaply as they possibly can. And we are trying to do something different. We pay a lot more for our ingredients.

We pay a lot more to our staff, and we don't expect them to work as many hours as some other businesses do. And that all means that the way the business is structured and the level of profit that we can expect to make is less.

The people who come and work with us are lovely people. I always say whenever anyone joins Open Kitchen, you've not got a job. Now you've got a mission. And you've just got to think of it that way. And people do. So it's difficult, but I think it's incredibly worthwhile.

And then some of it is, I don't know, a bit of fear and mistrust. So a lot of the time when we approach food businesses, for example, to say, we know that in this current global last minute, just in time food system that we've got, there is a lot of beautiful food going to waste.

And you'll start talking to big food businesses and the first thing they'll do is really clam up and go no, we're don't waste food. Definitely not. And even just getting some food businesses to feel safe enough in a conversation with you that they will admit that, yes, there's quite a lot of food going to waste, but we've never done anything about it because in order to tackle our food waste, we have to break that little code of silence.

We've actually got to admit to someone who could possibly run off to a newspaper that food waste is happening. And at the moment, that's a really risky, unattractive proposition in a world where there's a lot of shaming and blaming and comms going out about sustainability or big oil, big industrial meat farmers ravaging the planet.

So building trust and making sure the food and drink businesses that work with us know that we can be a partner to them. We can be an ally to them and we can be a valid, safe environmental service almost for them is tricky. And it takes some time and effort.

[00:16:15] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I guess once you have a success with one, it helps to then demonstrate to others in your space. And maybe that gives them some confidence.

[00:16:24] Corin Bell: We're at that place now, and it does make it easier once you've got a couple of big names under your belt and big names who are happy to share statistics and share the news that they're working with you. That makes it a lot easier. And also just being able to share those success stories about what you can do with that food as well in terms of supporting local communities.

 The income generating activities that we have, the events catering business, the cafe, the events at the People's History Museum, all of that works subsidises the community activities that we have.

The pandemic and basically running a giant Meals on Wheels service when we couldn't trade as a caterer was one point in time. And what we do now is we have our income generating activities and that subsidises frontline community support operations. So we provide grocery parcels and meals for a range of people who are struggling with the cost of living, which is an increasing percentage of the population every month, it feels like at the moment.

[00:17:32] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: You've alluded a little bit to the impact you're making, and you talked about 14,000 meals a week during the pandemic, which is a lot of meals. Are there other ways you can talk about your impact?

[00:17:45] Corin Bell: For us it is mostly about numbers, because we are slightly removed from the social impact of what we do. So the way we've decided to operate our community operations is to focus on the food.

So we know food, we're a food and drink business. We've got a food standards agency rating. We've got a score on the door of five for our food safety. Our kitchen is run by professional chefs. It's not a volunteer led organisation. And I think that offers a lot of legitimacy and helps our food partners in immigration, refugee and asylum seeker status, fleeing domestic abuse, childhood obesity, any of these things.

What we tend to do is partner with grassroots groups within the community who are supporting people who are bringing a lot of social benefit and really supporting people who are experts in that group that they're supporting or that issue that they're working in, and we relieve pressure off them and we just say, why don't we deal with the food? How about that? And we provide with, with guidance from that group, we provide food that is healthy and nutritious, absolutely. But food that group will want and food that group will actually eat.

So we are not accidentally causing food waste, food that is culturally appropriate, which can be a real issue sometimes and just try and add value to whatever that group is doing. So we are always a step removed from the people and the real social impacts. But we're comfortable with that because we know we're doing good, we know we're helping.

And as I said, food is, it's not just about basic nutrition, it's not just physical health. Your mental health is in a very different place if you have access to a healthy, nutritious diet. But it's also about, bringing people together, about a lack of isolation, about feeling like you matter because someone bothered to make you a nice meal.

I think it has a huge range of benefits beyond just a number on a spreadsheet of meals or grocery parcels or weights of food.

[00:20:08] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Absolutely. Do you want to talk about those charities?

[00:20:11] Corin Bell: There's a few that we work with all the time. So there's a church group in Chorlton that run three different food banks and they're also supporting refugees and asylum seekers who have been placed in slightly tricky pieces of rented accommodation. These are people who could easily cook and feed their family very cheaply, but they don't have kitchen facilities.

We send a lot of stock to an independent food bank in South Manchester called Emily's Pantry, and they support families and women who are struggling with the cost of living. We support an organisation called Two Brews who are supporting people who through poverty, but also tackling isolation by trying to bring people together. City Hearts, and they're supporting people who have experienced modern slavery experienced and fled modern slavery and are now in the UK, but, maybe don't have leave to remain or have no access to public funds. So they come to our cafe every week.

 We've done a number of school food projects. We do a lot of holiday hunger work around summer holidays, Christmas, Easter break. And then there's just a range of small independent projects that are supporting families, individuals, older people who are hopefully moving on from being street homeless. And they all tend to be quite small and quite local.

[00:21:41] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. That does sound like working with a lot of organisations and obviously the amount of food waste that you're saving, is another very big impact.

[00:21:52] Corin Bell: I think at the moment, it varies wildly. I think in part it does vary massively month to month because people don't plan for waste. And some of the larger wholesale or regional food production companies they're working with, when a production line goes a bit wrong, an issue happens. That one incident might lead to five or six tons of food waste.

And then in other months it might be, there, there might not be an issue at all and we might not hear from those companies. And also I think it, food waste is very unpredictable at the moment because, the entire food system really is still recovering from the pandemic and still finding its feet and building.

Also, our food system is incredibly global. So there's also some genuine climate shocks, extreme weather incidents happening at the moment that are really impacting production harvesting, transport. Flooding roads, stopping trucks, all sorts of things. And that really impacts it. So I think our average at the moment is about eight to 10 tons a month.

But it just bounces up and down. And I still haven't quite worked out what if there is a trend emerging. That's fine.

[00:23:17] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. Eight to 10 tons is the weight of probably three elephants maybe one visual to think about.

How can interested people reach out to you and learn more? Where can they find you? And you can talk about the People's History Museum Cafe as well.

[00:23:35] Corin Bell: People can get in touch with us via our website which is www.openkitchenmcr.co.uk. We are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as open kitchen m c r, which is the original side to our business, which is now the catering and events side.

And then at Open Kitchen, p h m is on Insta. And I think we even have a TikTok now. And then obviously to visit us in person and try the food,. We have our city centre cafe, so we're Open kitchen, Cafe, and Bar. We are part of the People's History Museum.

[00:24:14] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Interesting I'll definitely check out Open Kitchen.

What advice do you have for people looking to start a similar movement in their local community? Let's say they are passionate about food waste. How do they get started? You talked about starting with a group of friends, wasn't it?

[00:24:31] Corin Bell: Yes. The first thing I would always say is find out what's already happening in your local community. It's a lot easier to join a movement than it is to start a movement, and sometimes, particularly in small geographical areas, if you start your own thing, there can be a little bit of reinventing the wheel.

There can be a little bit of sharing, spreading more thinly resources that are already a bit limited. The reason we ended up starting a new project is because we looked around at what was about what already existed and we couldn't see what we wanted to be in existence.

And actually now partly because of the work we've done that, there's a lot more projects popping up that are supporting people with food that would otherwise go to waste, and also, almost more importantly, campaigning to stop food waste from happening in the first place.

I think that's one of the things that we are all really passionate about is what we want is a future where good food doesn't go to waste. And there is an end to poverty. At the moment, we're in a really tricky point in history. There is food waste and it's going to take some time to hold bigger businesses to account and stop that from happening.

 There are people who are really struggling and as a sticking plaster obviously, while there is good food going to waste, we're going to try and do something useful with it, and we're going to make sure it goes in bellies, not bins, but that is not a solution. Food waste isn't stopped by pushing it onto the community and charity sector and actually it can lead to people getting what they're given which can be nutritionally not that great, can be not that great for your personal wellbeing and your, sense of worth. There's all sorts of issues with even the most well-meaning ends of our emergency food support and community support sector.

And I think most people who are acting with real integrity and ethics in an issue like food waste or food poverty and emergency food support, always have one eye on how can I fix this problem systemically to the point where I'm no longer needed. If you're working with a good sense of ethics, you're always trying to do yourself out of a job.

And a lot of the time, people who are starting new movements, particularly from a grassroots perspective because they see people in their neighborhood, in their community being hungry and they want to help. You start off being very practical and maybe think, oh, I can partner with these shops and I can get hold of all this food and isn't it brilliant And we'll cook it and actually joining other organisations that have been in that space for longer.

For example, there's a brilliant alliance called the Food Security Action Network in Greater Manchester. And that's a movement bringing together a huge range of groups that are all working around those issues of food poverty, food security, accessibility to food. And that's not just about price. That might be about areas of Greater Manchester that don't have good shops, about accessibility in terms of you as an individual, mobility issues, but it's about helping people on limited incomes to access decent food.

And I think movements like that are really valuable because they bring people together and they allow people to talk about best practice. So they allow groups that are very grassroots who maybe aren't reading strategy papers, aren't coming at this from a perspective of systems and lobbying government to understand that wider framework and why being able to access loads of food that will otherwise go to waste and get it to people locally is practical and is an activity we absolutely support, but it's something that we also need to be lobbying to see an end of.

[00:28:52] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you. That's really good advice. And in some ways, I've heard this from other guests as well, plug the gaps rather than duplicating, how can you collaborate that you are amplifying. Absolutely, very sensible and practical and also nice because then you are engaging more with the community and perhaps coming up with a better offer.

An opportunity now for you to talk about anything I haven't asked you about. Anything specific for the autumn you want to talk about?

[00:29:22] Corin Bell: One of the fun bits about food, drink, and hospitality is, we're in the kind of crazy section of our year where it's wedding season. Everybody's having summer parties, but we're launching our Christmas menus now because all of our corporate customers are planning their. Christmas dos, or they certainly will be by the end of August.

So what's seasonal for me is not necessarily seasonal for anyone else, but I think by the end of this month, we'll have our Christmas offers on our website. So if you are listening and you work for a company that's going to plan a Christmas do and you want to have a Christmas do, that is not only sustainable and ethical and serving beautiful food, but also doing some good to support local people, get in touch.

 The only other thing I guess I would add is at the cafe, so the cafe space is open seven days a week. But it's a predominantly daytime venue. So the other thing, we're starting to do, September onwards we're also doing a range of our own evening events that will be focused on sustainability.

We do sustainable wine tasting evenings, sustainable beer tasting evenings, supper clubs and just they all have a real thread of sustainable and ethical food through them. But we try and maybe pick a different topic or a different, seasonal produce is always changing.

Sometimes we'll do 100% vegan menus and sometimes we'll do menus like our chefs get a real ready, steady cook challenge on and say we'll do a supper club, but we'll only use intercepted ingredients. We won't use any local produce. And just trying to do fun, engaging, delicious events that kind of stealth educate, no one wants to feel preached at, and no one wants to feel like sustainability is about going without.

I think a lot of messages around sustainability can feel quite negative. Don't fly, don't drive, don't eat meat, don't do this, don't do that. And we always try and make sure that our messaging is quite positive, quite inclusive that it's all, we're all on a journey and wherever you are up to is fine. And here's just a really delicious or a really fun way of engaging with a different aspect of sustainability. You can always find details about our events on Instagram and Twitter. We've got a Link tree on there, so any events that are live will be on there, and then they're always on the website.

[00:32:02] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Sounds very interesting. I might check out your supper club. I am vegetarian, but I'll be happy to come along one day.

[00:32:10] Corin Bell: Brilliant.

[00:32:10] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So coming to my favourite section, which is the signature questions I ask all my guests as we are Meet the Mancunian. Can you describe the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase?

[00:32:22] Corin Bell: I'm somewhere between the word cheeky and the word swagger, I think. I think Mancunians feel like a very friendly bunch. But generally are people who suffer fools lightly, which I think is fine. . Probably a little bit cheeky.

[00:32:37] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I also like the fact that there's made in Manchester, almost like we do it differently. There's a lot of real pride in that, and I've heard that in many capacities and it's always very nice.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why? It can be from the past or from the present.

[00:32:55] Corin Bell: That's a tricky one.

Do you know, I'm tempted to go with Hannah Cox from the Better Business Network. Hannah founded the Better Business Network and is just one of those balls out, slightly cheeky, very relentless women who just doesn't ever seem to stop and doesn't ever seem to take no for an answer.

And I think, it's a quality I really admire. And I have no idea if Hannah is actually a Manc. I've no idea where she's from. Where she started her life and where she grew up. But I think we've adopted her at this point. If she did come from anywhere else I think we're keeping her.

[00:33:32] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I say Mancunians are people who are born here, bred here, or moved here.

[00:33:38] Corin Bell: I think we adopt quite a lot.

[00:33:40] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yes I'm a new Mancunian. It's only been two years for me, so I feel adopted. And Hannah was a great guest and of course we featured her in season five, so I can definitely link to that.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:33:55] Corin Bell: The fact that it's scary is definitely not a reason not to do it. I think and possibly linked to that, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying and failing. In fact, it's incredibly important. Just. I think when you are younger or maybe if you've come from a certain type of family, it can be quite scary.

The idea of trying and failing, putting yourself out there, you are always, I think as soon as you get in any sort of public arena, you are always going to come on under criticism. Particularly now, social media, is just horrendous these days. It's just nothing but people bitching at each other.

And I think one of the things, if you are going to do anything really worth doing in this world, you just have to accept that other people are going to have whatever opinion they have and that you are going to file that squarely under their problem.

[00:34:52] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yes I have a saying. I say, not my circus, not my monkeys.

[00:34:56] Corin Bell: Yes. I think it was it Oscar Wilde who used to say, other people's opinions of me are none of my business. I really like that one. There's always going to be people. There's a difference, I think, between people engaging you constructively and saying, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?

And people just being critical and just having a pop and there's always going to be negative, passive aggressive people sitting on the sidelines, feeling very superior, chatting about everything you haven't done perfectly. And that is going to be their problem.

[00:35:31] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yes, absolutely. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? I.

[00:35:36] Corin Bell: Ooh, I'm going to go with flying. Not because it would be useful in anything I do, but just because I've just run through the other options and I don't want them. For a second there, I thought being psychic, being able to read minds might be useful. And then I realised I'd go very quickly mad and then I thought X-ray vision might be fun, and then I realised that you'd see too much and you'd go completely mad.

And I'd get flying feels like a nice, it could just be a hobby. It could just be something I do at the weekend that relieve pressure. I could just go gliding. So I'll go with that.

[00:36:08] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yeah, it's a very popular one, I must say. So I think it's everybody's secret dream. Mine is actually to talk to animals. I would love to have very meaningful conversations with my dogs. They look at you in all these interesting ways, but you can't always understand.

[00:36:22] Corin Bell: Oh, that's a good one. I never actually thought of Doctor Doolittle as a superhero, but now I will.

[00:36:27] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Corin, thank you so much for talking to me today. I really enjoyed learning about all the amazing work you're doing to address food waste, but also to combat food poverty. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:36:38] Corin Bell: Thank you. It's been great. Thanks for having me on.

Corin, thank you for talking to me today. I really enjoyed learning about addressing food waste today.

Dear listener, thank you so much for listening to the third episode of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, Season Six. Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode or log on to www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to listen to all the episodes and learn more about my podcasting story.

Next week on Tuesday, 26 September, 2023, I speak to Fran Darlington-Pollock about tackling homelessness.

Thank you for joining me on this enriching journey through the social impact stories of Manchester with the sixth season of the Meet the Mancunian podcast. I hope the stories you heard today have sparked a fire of inspiration within you. May they serve as a gentle reminder that no dream is too big and no passion too small.

Your feedback means simple to me. Visit www. meetthemancunian.co.uk to share your thoughts, suggestions, and the causes that touched your heart. Your input helps me craft a podcast that truly touches hearts and makes a difference in our community.

Stay connected with the podcast on social media. You can find us @MeettheMancunian on Instagram and Facebook, or follow us on Twitter as @MancunianPod. Sharing and leaving a comment would be a fantastic way to spread the word and build a vibrant community of change-makers.

Before I sign off, remember to introduce this podcast to your friends and family. So together we can amplify the impact and reach of these incredible stories. Once again, thank you for being a part of the Meet the Mancunian family. Your support fuels my passion. And I can't wait to bring you more compelling stories that will touch your heart and fuel your soul.

Until we meet again in the next episode, let's keep creating waves of change together. Remember the world needs more Mancunian spirit. So go out there and be the change you wish to see.

Take care, stay inspired.