Thye Wiggly Worm - Joint Meeting with Stroud Rotary

Following the usual excellent meal, we were entertained by the speaker of the evening, Abby Guilding – Managing Director of the Wiggly Worm charity.

Abby told us how the charity was started in  2007 by the founder Rob Rees MBE DL.  His aim was to promote an awareness and the education of cooking, food skills and nutrition. The name came from Rob’s son Jack, who loved food and referred to the famous children’s book ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ as the ‘The Wiggly Worm’.

Abby told us how they work with those in our society who are vulnerable, disadvantaged or seldom heard. They relish working with people who others find difficult to engage with. 

Their aim is to deliver practical results to individuals, communities, local authorities and public sector organisations. Their expertise lies in using food in everyday ways to deliver physical and mental health benefits.

Being a bold and exciting charity achieving life-enhancing outcomes. It is their vision to be the leading UK charity for creating opportunities for life through food.

They have launched a number or exciting projects including new partnerships with the ‘Going the Extra Mile’ project in Gloucestershire, and Age UK Gloucestershire, as well as continuing their ‘Kitchen Challenge’ training course and ther ‘No Person Hungry’ campaign.

We learned that in 2015 – A television production company, Two Four, approached them to deliver their Kitchen Challenge training programme alongside world renowned chef Michel Roux Jnr., The challenge was to train 8 young people with disabilities, wanting to get jobs in the catering industry.   Kitchen Impossible was aired in the Autumn of that year.

When their founder, Rob Rees made the decision to emigrate to Australia, they strengthened their Board of Trustees and Abby, stepped in to the MD role.

 Alongside the food poverty crisis, the food industry was throwing away tonnes of surplus food as waste.   So they worked with local companies including Creed Foodservice to take fresh surplus food and upcycle it into nutritious meals for their ‘No Child Hungry’ programme.  

The Star Bistro continued to succeed, and they opened another in Cheltenham – Star Bistro at Royal Crescent - after a local business kindly gifted the goodwill of a café in Cheltenham, ‘Pepper Crescent’, to the StarBistro partnership. The Wiggly Worm delivery team grew to 21 employees working across the StarBistros and community food projects.

It was a fascinating story of enterprise and success, focussing on three themes; food which we all need and which for some, may not be the most nutritious. Helping people with disabilities to find a rewarding purpose in society and finally to make better use of the large amounts of food which many retailers allow to go to waste.

Bryan Webster. Stonehouse Rotary