Livv Housing Group and Alchemic Kitchen help residents celebrate Global Scouse Day in lockdown

Livv Housing Group is continuing its commitment to supporting local communities and addressing food poverty by encouraging sheltered scheme residents to take part in a Global Scouse Day Cook Along.

Every year on February 28th Merseyside comes together to celebrate Global Scouse Day by eating out at local restaurants and enjoying the local delicacy scouse. With restaurants remaining closed for some time yet, Livv is sending out recipes and ingredients so that its residents can enjoy their own scouse.

Livv have teamed up with Alchemic Kitchen, a social enterprise from Liverpool that specialises in making preserves from locally-sourced food that would otherwise be wasted. They will be distributing the ingredient packs with recipes for a vegetarian ‘blind scouse’ and pickled cabbage.

Alchemic Kitchen’s Grow Project has been funded by Livv’s Social Impact team for the last 18 months and the scouse ingredient deliveries form part of their Your Food Needs You campaign, which aims to reduce food waste across the Liverpool City region through events such as Disco Chops, community meals and Food Labs.

Global Scouse Day started in 2008 and has traditionally been a chance for over 100 restaurants across the city to make their favourite version of scouse – a type of stew, typically made from chunks of meat, usually beef or lamb, potatoes and onion – with proceeds from sales going to local charities.

Livv and Alchemic Kitchen are also encouraging residents to take part in a recipe exchange, so the ingredient packs also come with a return envelope for people to send in their own favourite recipes for inclusion in a community recipe book.

Amanda Newton Executive Director, Customer Insight at Livv Housing Group said: “We’re proud of our Merseyside roots and Global Scouse Day is an excellent opportunity to enjoy our local dish, so we’re delighted to be giving residents the chance to make their own. People having access to good quality, nutritious food has become a bigger issue than ever since the onset of COVID-19.  This is a particular concern here in Knowsley, and our support of the Grow Project demonstrates our commitment to supporting people and families to live healthy lives as well as having a positive social impact within our communities. ”

Helena Appleton from Alchemic Kitchen said: “Scouse is traditionally a dish made up of the bits and pieces you have at home so it fits the theme of our Your Food Needs You campaign perfectly. While we can’t be together this year because of lockdown, we thought this Cook Along would be a nice way to unite us in our regional flavours and recipe.”

To read more about Alchemic Kitchen visit www.alchemickitchen.org or to find out about Global Scouse Day visit www.globalscouseday.com.