A Community Food Hub for Kirkcaldy

Greener Kirkcaldy is developing plans for a Community Food Hub in Kirkcaldy, which will be a place for people to come together to grow, cook, eat and learn.

The Food Hub will offer training, volunteer and work experience opportunities; life-long learning around food production and preparation; community meals and engagement with our community on healthy, sustainable food. It will host a wide range of events, courses and workshops on all aspects of food and drink – plans include Beginners Breadmaking, Indian Vegetarian Cooking and Eating Well on a Budget. The Food Hub will also include a base for a food Coop promoting local seasonal produce, a pop-up community café, and could act as a distribution point for Kirkcaldy Food Bank.

The Food Hub project will be delivered across 2 sites, with a Community Kitchen in Kirkcaldy town centre and a Horticultural Training Centre at Ravenscraig Walled Garden in east Kirkcaldy. Find out more about the background to the Community Food Hub idea in our previous post how the idea came about.

Community Kitchen, Kirkcaldy Town Centre

We are are currently refurbishing the old library headquarters at East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy. The building will house our new community kitchen, as well as our office and an events space.

We purchased the building at East Fergus Place with a grant from the Scottish Land Fund, a Scottish Government initiative which gives funding and support to help communities take ownership of land and buildings for projects to benefit local people.

The refurbishment is being funded by a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Community Assets programme. Once complete, it will centre on a fully equipped training kitchen with 8 workstations, an event space, and a small kitchen garden growing fresh ingredients.The grant will also contribute to the Food Hub project’s initial running costs while we develop it as a social enterprise.

The refurbishment is being carried out by local builders, John Smart & Son, who started work on Monday 23rd July 2018 and expect to be finished on 1st February. We are hoping to launch the new Community Food Hub and a new programme of activities in early Spring 2019.

Horticultural Training Centre, Ravenscraig Walled Garden

Ravenscraig Walled Garden is already a thriving community asset, with individual allotments and plots for community groups managed by Kirkcaldy Community Gardens & Allotments, and our established community orchard.  We have recently created a new training garden and room there,  which will offer courses, training and volunteer opportunities in gardening and growing your own fruit and vegetables.

We’re also working with Kirkcaldy Community Gardens & Allotments and the site’s landlord, Fife Council, on longer-term plans for the development of Ravenscraig Walled Garden. The Garden is part of the historic landscape of Dysart House and Ravenscraig Park and is Common Good land, so we consulted stakeholders, including Fife Council’s Conservation Officer, and agreed to, first of all, develop a Masterplan for the site to ensure that its historic features are protected. We will update this page as the work develops and the Masterplan progresses.