Migrateful

Migrateful is an award-winning charity and social enterprise that supports refugees and migrants on their journey to integration and employment. We do this by enabling them to teach cookery classes, where they share their cuisine and culture with the public. The training and teaching experience builds chefs’ confidence, self-esteem, English language skills, and employability skills. The cookery class intervention seeks to challenge misconceptions about migrants in the UK and increase community cohesion through contact theory. In the last eight years, we have supported 110 refugee and migrant cooks to teach over 5,000 cookery classes to 60,000+ participants. Alongside our public classes, we offer team cookery classes, which are a brilliant (and delicious!) way to build bonds, while giving back.

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Who are your founders and what is the origin story of the company?

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Migrateful was founded in 2017 by Jess Thompson following discussions with a group of refugee women at a skill exchange project in Tower Hamlets. Many of the women in the group were very qualified yet were unemployed because of language barriers and their qualifications not being recognised in the UK. When asked about the skills they could share with the group, many of them said they could cook. This gave Jess the idea to launch Migrateful; with the aim of getting these women into employment by supporting them to share their incredible cooking skills with the public.

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Do you have a claim to fame moment, a proudest moment or time you made it into the news?

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A big milestone for us was opening our first-ever cookery school in 2021, which is based right around the corner from FBC at the Peele Centre on Corporation Row. It was a big fundraising ask, but thanks to the overwhelming support of our community, and backing from a few famous faces (including Sadiq Khan and Meghan Markle), we raised over £100,000. It’s been our home ever since! We’re now opening our second cookery school, based at the wonderful Windmill Hill City Farm in Bristol. We’ve been lucky enough to catch the attention of the press a number of times over the years. Migrateful chefs and classes have appeared in features for the BBC, ITV, The Guardian, Waitrose magazine, Dua Lipa’s Service95 magazine and most recently on the big screens at Glastonbury, as part of a campaign for Refugee Week! Our classes have been shouted out by a few public figures, including Jamie Oliver, Aisling Bea and Will Poulter.

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What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a company?

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Before the Pandemic, we only offered in-person classes, which is where the majority of our income came from. When the UK went into lockdown, we had to pivot quickly to online delivery, which brought a multitude of challenges. The chefs we work with hadn’t been trained to teach online classes – it was a completely different experience from teaching in person. We had to invest in more tech, and we needed new systems to deliver the classes. Thankfully, it ended up being a success. People were looking for activities to do from home, ways to connect with their loved ones, and ‘feel-good’ moments. Our online classes provided all of these, allowing us to sustain and even grow – reaching kitchens all over the world.

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Do you have a favourite spot in Clerkenwell for lunch or drinks after work?

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When we’re not scrounging leftovers from our own cookery school, The Grubberie is a go-to for lunch. They have so many options, and once you’ve been in a few times, they can usually guess your order by sight, which always makes us feel pretty special. For after-work drinks, you’ll usually find us at The Betsey Trotwood.

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