Hopwood Hall College receives £65k catering grant

John Spindler, Hopwood Hall College’s Deputy Principal, Bryan Townson, Chef Lecturer at Hopwood Hall College, Hermann Ghort, Advanced level 3 Student and Sue Hadfield, Head of Catering at Hopwood Hall College

Hopwood Hall College has been awarded a £65,000 grant by the Savoy Educational Trust. The grant will be put towards the College’s new catering training facilities at the revamped Rochdale campus, providing efficient, modern and compliant equipment.

The College catering department has been consolidated onto a single floor as part of the Rochdale building works. The project, including the build and fit-out of two modern training kitchens, with state-of-the-art industrial equipment, is predicted to cost in excess of £180,000.

The Savoy Educational Trust is an independent, grant giving charitable trust, whose main aim is to advance and develop education, training and qualifications within the hospitality industry. The Trust was very keen to learn about the project and following an initial proposal submission, the Trust recommended that the College put in an official bid.

Saf Arfan, Hopwood Hall Director for Corporate Services, commented: “This is a massive amount of money and it will go a long way to providing the best equipment and facilities for our catering students in the two brand new training kitchens.

"We are very grateful to The Savoy Educational Trust for this generous contribution and their guidance throughout the process. The Trust funds some exceptional projects across the education sector and we feel highly privileged to have received this award.

“The department was recently accredited a silver award from the Hospitality Guild in recognition for the quality of provision and the on-site restaurant which offers students real work experience has recently been awarded the one star AA rosette.

"This grant will help further boost our grade one catering department.”