The four-piece, who help to organise the Split Festival, have teamed up with Sunderland City Council to hold Split Feastival, a food festival which will take place in Herrington Country Park from June 15 to 17.

A free event, the feastival promises the cream of the region’s food and drink from about 100 stalls.

In preparation for the three- day celebration of food, the band picked up some culinary tips from Create in Hendon.

Based in Lombard Street, Create teaches homeless people catering skills with a view to them gaining employment in the field.

In between getting his tartlets in the oven and doing that pinch thing with the salt, Ross Millard was hard at work at Create telling people what precisely was going on, and what it meant for the festival and the city as a whole.

“Well, Martin McFadden and Rob Deverson, heard about this organisation through Sunderland City Council, who we all work quite closely with now for Split Festival and Split Feastival, and they brought this amazing place to our attention. 

I don’t think there’s many places like Create in the country. Where people can come from all sorts of different backgrounds – homeless, unemployed, struggling domestically – and get completely retrained in three months and end up in the world of work pretty soon afterwards.

Read the full story from the Sunderland Echo here, read the interview with Ross Millard of Futureheads on Kyeo or take a peek at the day below…

In a city that believes in doing things differently, a new business opens its doors that believes in doing business for the best of reasons.

Create is a food business that offers outside catering services to the corporate and private sector but is a whole lot more.

The award winning social enterprise Create was proud to open the doors of its newly refurbished café in the Manchester Cathedral Visitor Centre on April 18th 2012.

What sets this café apart from others is not only the beautiful position but that Create is a different kind of business that believes in people as well and profit and offers training and employment to people who have been homeless or marginalised in the city of Manchester.

Create is a food business that offers delicious delivered food services to the corporate and private sector and now finds a fresh, contemporary home in the comparative calm of Manchester’s medieval heart. Create Food is inspired and directed by National Executive Chef Richard Walton-Allen, who’s years of experience and passion for British food caused the Observers Jay Rayner to write “by the end of lunch even this cynical old dog was ready to clamber on to his hind legs and applaud.”

Create’s Employment Academy offers a 12-week personalised support programme in a safe but truly commercial environment. It works because it gives people a framework in the real world of work. Trainees benefit from quality training, hands-on work experience and the chance to gain nationally recognised qualifications.  Perhaps most importantly, trainees find a place where they belong and a group of people who will support and believe in them.

Create trainees get an opportunity to work alongside Manchester Executive Head Chef Richard Moore who has enjoyed a long and successful catering career in the North West and be further inspired by the varied career opportunities available in the world of catering, hospitality and customer services.

Create catering established itself at the end of last year working from The Broadwalk, Salford and now  the Cathedral Café by Create offers a beautiful city centre space to enjoy coffees, light lunches and delicious afternoon teas as well as a superb space for hire for companies and private parties.

Richard Moore says “We’ve already got great success stories of our Manchester trainees getting back into work through their time at Create. It’s so rewarding to have the opportunity to inspire people within the catering profession, an industry I’m passionate about. It’s fantastic to watch each person grow and to see their self-esteem return. Once that personal confidence comes back, really the difference it makes is immense.” 

Check out the story on the BBC, listen to Lucy Campbell on BBC Manchester here (at 1hr, 46min, 30sec into Heather Stott’s programme), look at the great pictures on Flickr and follow the café on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you there.

Norman Pickavance, chairman of Leeds-based Create, said it needed between £250,000 and £1m for the next immediate stage of its expansion which includes bidding for public sector catering contracts.

Create is in advanced discussions with a Yorkshire local authority to run its catering contract, which would include a large cafe and providing catering for thousands of people.

Mr Pickavance, who is also HR director for supermarket giant Morrisons, said if Create was successful, the contract would add 10 per cent to its turnover, which is expected to reach £1.9m this year, create at least 30 jobs and benefit hundreds of people who used its services.

“It would be a big leap,” he said. “It would demonstrate there is a different way of providing local authority services. A way where you can actually combine the work of two different sides of the local authority – social care and catering services.

“It would be a big injection of funds because it’s a big contract. But for us to be able to do that we have to put in a significant amount of capital to fit out kitchens and we don’t have access to that.”

The community interest company was set up five years ago as a catering firm, employing homeless people to make sandwich platters and finger buffets for weddings and office parties.

It now has a training academy in the centre of Leeds, accommodating up to 45 trainees at a time, and it currently delivers outside catering and hospitality to around 1,000 people per week. Its clients include developer Land Securities, Lloyds Banking Group and Baker Tilly.

Read the full story from the Yorkshire Post here…

Create offers employment and training to hundreds of people in its corporate catering businesses across Leeds, Sunderland, Manchester and Doncaster, as well as in its flagship restaurant in Leeds. With plans to expand nationally, Create will introduce an investment vehicle to promote more sustainable investment from private investors.

Norman Pickavance, Chair of Create said:

“We’ve been waiting for the Government to launch an investment mechanism for Social Enterprise for two years, but we couldn’t wait any longer. There’s a real need for the work we do in helping people back to work. Create’s got a proven track record, but social enterprises like ours depend on private investment to survive and to continue supporting local people. We’d like to see business leaders using a percentage of their bonuses to invest back into their communities and hope this vehicle will catalyse this movement. I will be writing to the leaders of big businesses across the country to ask if we can contact their high net worth employees about the scheme.”

There are an estimated 62,000 Social Enterprises currently operating in UK. It is estimated they contribute nearly £25billion to the economy each year and employ around 800,000 people. It is hoped the investment scheme developed for Create will significantly contribute to the growth of this valuable sector.

Hazel Blears MP for Salford and Eccles and a supporter of Create said:

“The work that Create do to support the most vulnerable into work is invaluable in our communities. In the current economic climate a scheme to help bring investment into social enterprise organisations like Create is to be welcomed.”

Sarah Dunwell, Chief Executive at Create concluded:

“The trainees in our Employment Academy are looking for a hand up, not a hand out. Our food businesses have an excellent reputation and provide people with a wide range of entry level jobs, allowing them to train and work alongside expert staff and to feel proud again. We believe people are looking for an easy way to do good and an investment in Create will enable us to do this kind of good on a grand scale”

Create will be launching the investment opportunity this week to high net worth investors.

I was looking forward to visiting Create after reading Jay Rayner’s review in the Guardian. The food sounded excellent. Seasonal, unfussy, gutsy, and with a modern flair and artistry that lifts a dish to something much more exciting. I didn’t even think about the beer really. I’ve trained myself not to get my hopes up when it comes to good restaurant’s beer menus. If you’re lucky you might get a bottle of Sierra Nevada, but something really exciting, or local? Unlikely. 

Then I spotted something about a Rhubarb and Ilkley Brewery food and beer event happening at Create and my interest really peaked (a table was already booked at this point). It transpired that rather than a generic lager on draught they’ve taken the bold step of serving MJ Pale, a local beer from Ilkley Brewery’s Artisan keg range, as well as a really good selection of bottled beers from the always dependable Samuel Smiths Brewery.

You have no idea what a nice surprise it was to read that beer menu at Create, finally an upmarket restaurant that is taking beer seriously. A great local beer on draught and a well chosen selection of beers in bottles that would pair well with the food, and even an Imperial Stout to match with the desserts. 

While we decided what to order from the food menu, I enjoyed a pint of the lovely MJ Pale, a sort of Amarillo hopped session Kolsch which punches much higher than its 3.7% abv would suggest. Served in an attractive stemmed and lined pint glass it was light and dry with a great aroma and flavour of tangerine and grapefruit. Very approachable yet interesting and tasty, I can see this being popular, particularly in bars and restaurants.

After ordering, the starters arrived swiftly and looked fantastic. My starter of chargrilled mackerel, Yorkshire rhubarb, beetroot and horseradish cream was light and vibrant with a great contrast between smoky skinned succulent mackerel, sweet rhubarb and creamy horseradish. But it was Colette’s starter of moist pork belly layered with black pudding in a crispy coating that was the star dish here. The three succulent squares of piggyness were simply awesome, I could have eaten a dozen.

The mains carried on the theme of simple ingredients cooked skillfully and with flair but not fuss. Colette’s salt beef with mash potatoes and a caper sauce was a huge slab of tender red brisket that needed the citrusy caper sauce to counteract the salty richness of the meat. It was a real comfort food dish this, perfect for a properly cold night.

As good as the salt beef was, my main was even better. The skirt steak was one of the tastiest pieces of meat I’ve had in a very long time, and even better than the Bavette a l’echalotte from La Grillade (also skirt steak, and a big favourite of mine). The thing with skirt steak is it has great flavour but can be a little tough if not handled and cooked correctly. I ordered it rare and it came perfectly cooked, and I mean perfect. The great thing was that it was really nicely charred on the outside and evenly rare throughout the whole steak, well rested, tender and juicy. The accompaniments were excellent, but at this level of cooking I would have liked better chips, something double cooked and handcut. But it’s a minor niggle when your eating a steak that is this good.

Despite the mains being generously sized we decided a dessert would just about fit. One chocolate brownie with white chocolate icecream and one chargrilled rum banana with toasted marshmallow and the same (excellent) icecream. Oh and a bottle of Samuel Smiths Imperial Stout to pair with it.

Both desserts were great with the Imperial Stout, but it was the combination of the banana dessert with the beer that sticks in my mind. The boozy sweetness of it, and the well charred banana and dark chocolate sauce just went so well with the chocolatey, slightly sour notes of the Sam Smiths beer. It’s more of an Export Stout than an Imperial Stout by my tastes, and with this dessert worked perfectly.

So there you have it. Amazing food, well chosen beer, and a little bit of care gone in to everything. Exactly what I’m looking for in a restaurant.

On the wall above the semi-open kitchen at this week’s restaurant is the slogan: “Create – where good food and people matter.” Anybody with a healthy disdain for mission statements, sloganeering and the unintentional kitsch of Hallmark greeting cards will immediately hear alarm bells and ear-bleeding sirens. In a world sodden with motivational cobblers which regularly commits grievous bodily harm against the English language, we can be forgiven for being hostile to this sort of stuff. In this case, it is safe to disengage the early-warning systems. Create is a different sort of restaurant business, and there is much more to its slogans than mere vocabulary bingo.

Create is the latest manifestation of a social-enterprise venture which has been operating in the north for a few years, helping to get the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged back into the habit of work through a series of 12-week training schemes around food businesses. Up to now they have run a set of outside catering operations. A few months ago it finally secured the backing to launch a standalone restaurant and brought in Richard Walton-Allen, former head chef at Harvey Nichols in Leeds, to act as executive chef. A backbone of full-time professionals both front and back of house is supported by a roster of Create trainees. “If you can get yourself into work on time, put on the uniform, follow a recipe and cook a dish you can do almost any job,” Walton-Allen told me. It’s not about training up people to work in the food world, it’s simply about training them up for the world of work.

All of this is admirable, but would be a pointless waste of good ingredients if the restaurant was a calamity. It has to be a good place to eat first, second and third. All the other stuff then has to tuck in behind. Happily, Create is a good place to eat. The huge airy space with its big splashes of colour has a relaxed, easy feel (though they could probably do with turning down, or losing, the piped music. Or better still, losing it altogether). The menu is completely fluent in modern British, which is to say: food from all over the shop put together in sensible combinations. A plate of thinly sliced smoked venison, for example, with fresh figs alongside properly dressed rocket leaves is a thoroughly pretty plateful; crisp-shelled fritters of salt cod are a little dense but only because they haven’t been bulked up with potato. No matter: the tarragon mayonnaise helps them on their way.

Prices are noticeably ungrasping: £14 isn’t much money for a complex dish of partridge breast with confited leg, creamed Brussels sprouts, chestnuts and a generous handful of sautéed girolles. Even better value is one of the best-cooked hunks of skirt steak I have ever enjoyed, with a smoky charcoal char outside and a blush of pink within. There’s no point pretending: skirt is a cut solely for those with all their own teeth, but it rewards the effort.

The chocolate and orange mousse with a brash tangerine sorbet had the virtue of not being cloyingly oversweetened; a soft meringue and chocolate roulade had the virtue of looking like the sort of thing you might actually want to buy from the freezer cabinet at Iceland but wouldn’t dream of purchasing for fear of being spotted by the neighbours.

Service is entirely unremarkable – I cannot tell you if we were served by the pros or the trainees, though we did have cause to interact with almost everyone working the room. In short, while Create may be a social enterprise designed to vanquish the dismal, dreary, soul-destroying inequities of unemployment, you will merely regard it as a nice place to go for lunch. And go you should, because it deserves your support.

On the back wall is a further set of slogans: “Create is about believing”; “Believing that food is about hospitality not theatre, caring not showing off”; “Believing that people can grow, thrive and excel when given the chance”; “Believing that businesses and ordinary people can do extraordinary things”. It says much for the success of this place that by the end of lunch even this cynical old dog was ready to clamber on to his hind legs and applaud.

© Guardian Newspapers. Read the full article here.

Social Enterprise, Create has been one organisation which has benefited from this trend. “Donations in both cash and kind from a variety of individuals have meant that we’ve been able to help lots of homeless and disadvantaged people” said Gary Stott, Deputy Chair.

“Individual generosity has been a huge help in getting us this far”  said CEO Sarah Dunwell, “but as we look to grow faster we know we need to make it easier for people to invest, by putting an appropriate structure in place and making it more effective”. So Create have talked to the experts at accountants PwC and lawyers Addleshaw Goddards and as a result have now launched a brand new investment scheme which will allow anyone interested to invest anything from £10,000 to £2 million in total. 

“After I graduated from a business growth programme, led by Goldman Sachs and Leeds University Business School, “I knew I needed more investment if I was going to expand the service we provided to homeless people” said Sarah. “Raising investment will mean more people can get involved in what Create are doing and that we can help even more people to rebuild their lives”.

Create launched the investment scheme, the first of its kind in the UK to be used in this way, last month at a networking event in central Leeds.

So what’s next? “There’s no time to rest on our laurels, I’ve had some great mentoring from the boss of Goldman Sachs, and that really gave me the confidence to expand, even in these tough times”, says Sarah Dunwell “we are launching our next Create Business Centre in Salford next week, and look forward to working in partnership for change across the community” The Salford launch will be the first of the new Create Business Centres funded through social impact investing.

Using the best of British ingredients, Create offers catering from a working lunch through to fine dining and canapés for private events all under the skilled hands of Chef Jo who has worked for the Godfathers of Cuisine, The Roux Brothers, at the famous multi award winning and three Michelin starred restaurant, Le Gavroche in London.

Today, on National Social Enterprise Day, Create North East celebrates with its first cohort of trainees from their new Sunderland base. Charlie came to Create as he wanted to make a difference to his life and make something of himself. Create catering is about more than just great food. Every year they train more than 100 people who need a fresh start, helping them to make the journey into a job that provides not just income, but dignity and hope.

Charlie came from an organisation where he was living with his mother as a result of fleeing domestic violence. Charlie knew he wanted to make something of himself and not go down the same negative track as others he knew. As a result of having this passion to get the most out of life Charlie joined Create and there has been no stopping him. He has grabbed every challenge with both hands and ran with it.

 “We are about kick starting people’s futures,” says Lindsay Newby, Business Centre Manager for Create. “We provide a structure but it’s the individuals who do the hard work. In just one month we have seen an amazing change in our trainees. It’s all about building up confidence and getting them back on the road to employment.”

Charlie starts his new job on  Saturday and says “I just want to say a big thank you for this rewarding and overall inspiring opportunity, never could I imagine myself successfully gaining employment this early in life never mind achieving my food hygiene certificate, learning new skill and meet a new range of, hopefully long term friends within a space of five weeks. Create is an effective and very beneficial place to learn new skills and gain employment, I would strongly recommend it to anyone, under any circumstances . Thanks again.”

The Chancellor’s wife opened up her famous home to a delegation from Leeds in celebration of the city’s fundraising efforts.

Frances Osbourne hosted the group as part of the 2011 StreetSmart launch party held at 11 Downing Street in London on day one of the two month campaign that collects cash in aid of the homeless.

Last year the YEP-backed scheme raised £22,000 in Leeds – more than any other city in England outside London.

Mrs Osbourne said how “incredible” the fundraising efforts had been across the country, praising the “simplicity” of the concept.

Read the full story in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Create believes that big problems in society need big solutions and that those solutions are best delivered in partnership and today Create and PwC showed that belief in action. Professional services firm PwC joined forces with Create, a catering social enterprise rapidly gaining momentum on the Yorkshire food scene and local schools Heatherwood and North Ridge High, who both work with children with learning difficulties, to promote Create’s not for profit catering services in Doncaster. 

Students at the schools worked alongside PwC staff volunteers and James Farrow, Create’s chef in Doncaster, to creatively decorate 650 cupcakes for distribution across the city to give Doncaster’s business community a great taste of Create.

Today’s activities were part of PwC’s annual community volunteering day, where staff go to work at various community organisations across Yorkshire.  This year’s theme is employability, with the aim of making a long-lasting impact in the local community by sharing skills and fundraising to help people not only get into work, but sustain their employment and skills into the future. Staff from 25 PwC offices around the UK volunteered for activities such as mentoring, CV and interviewing skills for job seekers and entrepreneurship skills for young people.

Steve Denison, PwC’s Northern Chairman, said:

“CREATE is a growing and successful business with fantastic social objectives at its core. They fit our theme of ‘employability’ brilliantly as the way they engage people through meaningful training and employment opportunities and through their work in the community is inspiring. Our efforts to help the most vulnerable in our communities on one firmwide volunteering day go beyond a day of concentrated support, but we hope that we can highlight what a difference sharing some of the skills we use in our everyday work can make a difference to communities.”

Samantha Archer is Business Centre Manager for Create South Yorkshire and is thrilled with the support from PwC. “This is a great boost to have PwC raising awareness of Create catering in Doncaster and an excellent way for new customers to taste our delicious wares. As we build up our business we can train even more through our academy and help people back into employment, “says Samantha.

PwC took up the challenge of supporting social enterprise not through raising charity money but through building business. In Leeds and Doncaster they got out onto the streets and into the offices promoting Create’s great catering business.

Sarah Dunwell, CEO of Create said, “it is great to work with a business that ‘gets’ social enterprise. We deliver social change through running great business which invests every penny in delivering vulnerable people into employment. To do this on a larger scale we need two simple things, sales and growth. PwC have lent their skill and enthusiasm to this cause and as a direct result people who need jobs most will get them”.

PwC is focussed on promoting social inclusion within its local communities by supporting creative and active partnerships which focus on employability, education and the environment.  During 2011, over 4,200 PwC people were involved in employee volunteering programmes during working hours contributing more than 50,000 hours.   The value of what PwC contributed to its communities by way of financial support, volunteers’ time and the provision of business expertise amounted to £10.3m.