Guest blog: Alchemic Kitchen celebrates Apple Day!

Our latest guest blog is from Merseyside-based Alchemic Kitchen, whom we have supported through the Coronation Food Project since 2024. Read on to learn more about how our funding has made a difference! Thank you to Heidi Henders, Community Education Officer, for writing this blog.

On the banks of the River Mersey sits the National Trust’s Speke Hall, a grand Tudor building with 400 years of history. Constantly soared over by aeroplanes from nearby John Lennon Airport, it is a place of rich heritage, where Liverpool’s past and present collide. Connecting heritage and community is something we at Alchemic Kitchen do well, and at Speke Hall, we have a secret tool to help us do it. Apples! Nestled in the gardens of the hall is an apple orchard that for many years was producing a glut of apples which were being left to rot on the ground. That is where Alchemic Kitchen comes in.

Alchemic Kitchen (formerly a part of Foodrise) was set up as a development kitchen to make chutneys, jams and other products from surplus food that would otherwise go to waste. It has developed into an organisation that advocates and educates. We work alongside local communities in Merseyside to create a better food future for all. At Speke Hall, we started Apple Day, a day when thousands of locals (and some from further afield) gather to pick the apples from the orchard. Hundreds of apples go home with the participants, using our lovely tote bags and clutching recipe cards, while hundreds more are juiced, milled and turned into crumble on the day, with queues for these fresh products stretching halfway across the field. The video below shows a taster of the day:

In 2025, worrying grey skies hovered over Liverpool as our team arrived to set up at Speke Hall, but the forecast didn’t scare away the eager apple-pickers, who were queuing outside an hour before the doors opened! Soon the orchard was flooded with visitors of all ages, from tiny little babies to members of our older community groups who’d come along to support us. Thanks to the Coronation Food Project we had brand new apple pickers to help everyone reach the tops of the apple trees safely. It was amazing to see so many people picking fruit from the trees and enjoying apples right there and then. It is an opportunity for education, for young children to learn exactly where food comes from and understand our connection with the land. Over the past three years, it’s been wonderful to see Apple Day becoming a tradition for local families who return year on year.

Alchemic Kitchen wasn’t alone, in fact, we were joined by many others who helped make the day a success.

• Food for Thought, a local food charity who work in schools, had their stall set up to produce 850 apple crumbles!
• Ben Ruth, with help from his trusty juicer, produced 200L of apple juice.
• A vast team of volunteers including Lotus Brook’s Taking Root team and Stockbridge Village Community, to visitors from Foodrise’s other community projects in London, Brighton and Buckinghamshire, took on the role of ‘tree guardians’ to make sure the apple trees weren’t damaged in the excitement.
• Jay Hampton from the Old Swan Seedbank ran crafts and colouring to keep all those tiny hands entertained.
• Alison Lockett-Burke, owner of catering company Fig and the Wild sharing the heritage of the apples people were picking.
• Edwin and Laura of CreativePink interviewing our participants and putting together the wonderful video that you can watch here.
• Students from Liverpool John Moores University Radio interviewed participants for their show.
• And, of course, the National Trust and all the staff at Speke Hall who hosted the day and helped it to run so smoothly.
• Most importantly, the funding from the King Charles III Charitable Fund is helping to stop food waste, educate families and give people a wonderful memory to treasure. Thank you!