Growing Chefs! Ontario

Incorporated since 2008,Growing Chefs! Ontario is a registered charity based in London, Ontario that unites chefs, growers, educators and community members in children’s food education projects. 

Growing Chefs! Ontario offers a variety of Food Education Projects to get kids and communities excited about healthy, wholesome food! Click the Educational Programs tab to determine which Growing Chefs!

Ontario project is right for your children, school, class or community group. For resources you can use at home or in your own classroom without the Growing Chefs! Ontario team, check out our new Lesson Plans and subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

Our Mission:

• To change the way children, youth, families and the greater community learn about and develop healthy relationships with food!

Our Vision:

• To build and maintain a healthy, empowered community that is engaged with our food system.

Our Goals:

• To provide an avenue for chefs and growers to get more involved in the community and to support food education,
• To provide children with the confidence, knowledge and enthusiasm to grow and prepare good, healthy cuisine, and
• To support and encourage the development and growth of food education for children and families.

Our Core Values:

• Community: To engage, strengthen and support communities in their ongoing conversations around food,
• Food: To celebrate the positive change that we can create through food, and
• Health: To foster healthy bodies and minds through positive relationships with food.

Our Food Charter:

To help community members see food and cooking as fun, inclusive and empowering. Good food is for everyone.

To help all community members feel confident in making the best decisions they can with the resources available to them.

We work to achieve this in our own programming by means of:

• Promoting local foods whenever and wherever possible (i.e. Look to source local first and incorporate at least one local seasonal food in each Growing Communities cooking class as a learning point),
• Emphasizing whole ingredients and minimizing use of processed foods,
• Trying our best to ensure all seafood used as an ingredient is sustainably sourced,
• Trying our best to ensure all meat and egg products used as ingredients are locally, ethically and sustainably sourced,
• Promoting recipes featuring whole grains,
• Promoting recipes using reduced and/​or natural sugars,
• Advocating home cooking as a tool for a healthy and balanced diet, and
• Keeping in mind recipes need to be simple, clear and consider common barriers community members may be experiencing.