May 17, 2021
In this episode, Richard Dunne speaks to the founder of Square Food Foundation, Barny Haughton.
Barny is a chef, teacher and food educator who believes that food education should be playing a central role in health and education policy both at local and national government level: "if we want resilient food systems, we need resilient communities and if we want resilient communities, we need a food educated society" says Barny.
Barny opened his first and organic restaurant Rocinantes in Bristol in 1988 and went on to run two others, the third of which was Bordeaux Quay – a grand statement in eco-gastronomy and a huge lesson in the difference between what it takes to run a large business with a £3.5 debt and being an uncompromising idealist. During his restaurant years however, Barny instinctively and inevitably became a cookery teacher; to his chefs, then to children at his own children’s primary school and then, more formally to adults and families. Barny founded Square Food Foundation in 2011, a community cookery school which teaches people from all backgrounds and of all ages and abilities to cook good food and to better understand the role food plays in every aspect of life.
"From one person’s relationship with the food they eat to global strategies for a sustainable world future, never has food education had a more important role to play in what it means to be human" [Barny Haughton, May 2015]