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Reading prison has installed a training kitchen for its inmates to train for professional catering qualifications. Dorset-based Carford Group installed the new kitchen with eight commercial electric cookers, hobs and sinks, preparation tables and refrigeration. Carford also fitted a fast food kitchen where special narrow ducting was needed for air extraction as the windows were fitted with bars. The Young Offenders Institution also operates a main kitchen and officers' mess kitchen where prisoners can work supervised by members of staff. Jeremy Oughton, Reading Prison's head of learning and skills, said: "We provide basic meal planning, methods of cookery and food hygiene to prepare inmates for independent life.
"Now we can also offer a professional NVQ course to provide vocational skills in catering to allow them to leave and get jobs in commercial catering." Previously the prison was limited by a basic domestic science kitchen that was only suitable for teaching men how to cook for themselves at home. Now it has also appointed a professional chef lecturer, Robert Martin, to spearhead the training.
Carford product sales manager Steve Hemsil said: "Reading Prison is working to create opportunities to help turn lives around. If young men can leave here with the prospect of a career in catering, it will help them enormously." Reading Prison was originally built in 1844 on the site of a former small jail. In 1992 it was re-roled as a Remand Centre and Young Offenders Institution. |
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