Growing Chefs! Ontario: An interview with founder Andrew Fleet, and this great non-profit organization educating kids right here in OEV What is your history with food and the food industry? I started working in restaurants when I was 16 and continued for the next 15 years, cooking, serving and managing in restaurants from London to Vancouver. It was in Vancouver, when working under Chef Robert Clark in the Kamboulis restaurant group, that my passion for food and food education was sparked. Going through his OceanWise training program helped me to understand how much our personal food choices impact the communities we live in - socially, economically and environmentally. Chef Clark really advocated for people to learn about their food and make informed choices. What was the reason for starting Growing Chefs! Ontario? Growing Chefs! was started by Merri Schwartz, who at the time was Chef Clark’s pastry Chef at C restaurant. That is where I met her. I got involved with Growing Chefs! in Vancouver, and she was kind enough to let me see if it would work here in London. When you cook, you utilize science, math, history, geography, language, art, etc. – sometimes all in the same recipe! It’s such a fantastic example of how concepts in nearly every subject apply to our day-to-day lives. For me, cooking brought learning to life in a way I had never felt before. What were the first projects Growing Chefs! worked on here in London Ontario? In 2008, we launched what is now called the Growing Chefs! in the Classroom Project at Tecumseh Public School. That program is still offered to three to five schools every year. Every classroom in the participating schools gets to have two cooking experiences right in their classrooms guided by the Growing Chefs! team. These experiences are different for each age group with activities ranging from stir fry competitions, canning and preserving, and even edible art. We also piloted and launched what is now our Growing Communities Program in 2009. This program is available to community agencies across the City who can bring our Chef team in to design and deliver cooking and gardening programs for their own clients. We bring the ingredients, equipment and expertise to run the programs. It continues to be run in partnership with over 35 community groups, delivering programs to thousands of children and families every year.
What is the connection to Growing Chefs! and OEV? I lived in OEV for over 12 years. My wife grew up in this neigh-bourhood too, and my family still lives here. Growing Chefs! headquarters is just at Maitland and King, and we have our Food Education Centre at The Western Fair in the new Grove building. OEV is where our roots are (pardon the pun), and we are very proud of that! What are some of the successes for Growing Chefs! since it started? Honestly, the biggest success I think we’ve ever had is watching participants from our programs grow into adults who know more about food than the average Canadian and care about how the choices they make impact the world around them. But also – we were honoured to receive two awards at the Excellence in Agriculture Awards this year (2025) – The Agriculture Education award and the Minister’s Choice award, which is the top award and was personally presented to our team members by the Ontario Minister of Agriculture! It is really nice to be recognized for so many years of work and dedication to this work. What are some projects Growing Chefs! has been working on recently? Our new program, Learn to Grow, Grow to Give, is a one-acre farm that we started on the new WSIB property out on Tartan Drive. On the farm, we offer Agri-education programs and experiences for children and all of the food we grow through those programs is given directly (and anonymously) to food- insecure families through school support counsellors and neigh- bourhood resource centres. We only broke ground in July 2025 and were still able to grow over 7,000 lbs of food this summer! Next year is going to be very busy! We’re so excited!
Love is a five letter word– Adopt! Bringing people and pets together
MPP, London-Fanshawe
Constituency Office 155 Clarke Road, London N5W 5C9 519-668-1104
London Animal Care Centre 121 Pine Valley Blvd. www.accpets.ca • (519) 685-1330 The Catty Shack 756 Windermere Rd. • (519) 432-4572
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Page 8 Old East Villager Jan-Feb 2026
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