Thanks for reading Electric Connections, an update sent to you as one of the valued partners of the Global Cooksafe Coalition. We hope you enjoy it.
Our big news!
Monday 3 June will see the official launch of the Global Cooksafe Coalition in the UK. The event will feature new chef ambassadors Chantelle Nicholson, John Chantarasak and Douglas McMaster, as well as announcements about new property partners, climate, equity and health members, and additional high profile ambassador chefs. It’s going to be fabulous!
We have also filmed a short video to raise awareness of the GCC’s mission and celebrate the new perspectives and voices joining the coalition from across the UK and Europe. Clips of new partners will be shared on social media after the launch.
If you are in Australia or the US and would like to celebrate this exciting achievement with us, feel free to engage with and share our social media posts or use one of the captions/images supplied here. (Please don’t post or divulge this information publicly until after 00.01 AEST on Tuesday 4 June).
New chefs and resources
Go to our GCC Youtube channel and you’ll find some great resources that might just convince your audiences to change to electric cooking. They include two versions of a video called The Safe Way to Cook which were designed to focus on the health and environmental impacts of gas cooking. There are also two very compelling videos from new Australian ambassador chefs Hugh Allen (Vue De Monde) and Joseph Abboud (Rumi). Feel free to share them with your audiences!
We announced the wonderful Joseph Abboud as a chef ambassador a few months back but there are two other Australia chef ambassadors that we’d also like to formally welcome.
Hugh Allen from Vue de monde
Hugh Allen, Gourmet Traveller’s 2023 Chef of the Year and Executive Chef at the world renowned Vue de monde joined us recently – and we love the video he filmed with us in preparation.
Alex Prichard from Icebergs
Our other new recruit has worked with us before at our July 2023 event but only just became an official ambassador. Alex Prichard from Icebergs Restaurant in Bondi is articulate and engaging when talking about why he thinks the future of cooking is electric. Welcome aboard!
Because we care so deeply about commercial kitchen electrification and the benefits for everyone, we are working on a global Restaurant Guide to Electrification with our friends at the Sustainable Restaurant Association in the UK. We’ll be sure to share it with you when it’s done a little later in the year.
Advocacy and relationship building
We continue to work with policy makers and government in Australia, Europe and the UK to ensure that the legislative settings are right for the electrification of cooking in homes and businesses.
For example, we pushed for commercial cooking equipment to be included in the most recent round of Energy Efficiency Grants for Small for Medium Businesses from the Australian federal government. We know that a number of our ambassador chefs and their peers were involved in applications for these grants (of up to 25,000 AUD) and we look forward to hearing who was successful.
In a few weeks we’ll be presenting an online induction cooking Masterclass to TAFE teachers across NSW where we’ll explain the advantages of teaching young chefs on induction equipment.
To keep our work top of mind with federal parliamentarians we are also planning an induction cooking event at Parliament House in Canberra with a celebrity chef and Asthma Australia this quarter.
And we’re working with the Victorian state government in Australia as they develop their Regulatory Impact Statements on banning the sale of gas appliances.
In the UK later in the year we’ll be convening a roundtable of representatives from the hospitality industry (including F&B, property and manufacturers), local government, and academics to discuss the challenges in electrification and the link to air quality. We’ll also continue our work in the EU around appliance regulation and building directives.
Changing the narrative
Like many of you, we were deeply disappointed to hear about the gas sponsorship of the Australian Channel 10 cooking show Masterchef but we were heartened by the industry outrage in response to it. This included this wonderful article and podcast which features perspectives from our property partner Steve Ford from GPT and our ambassador chef Neil Perry. In the last week there has also been an ACCC complaint made about the sponsorship, as well as it being raised at a Senate Inquiry into greenwashing.
In Australia we have now appointed a PR Agency, Leisure Practice, to help us share media stories about the advantages of electric cooking while in the UK we are working closely with FINN Partners to ensure that our launch there is high profile and impactful.
Across all our regions we are continuing to engage with cooking appliance manufacturers about meeting gaps in the market and transitioning to all electric.
