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| [PHOTO: Stu Spivack] [License: CC BY-SA 2.0] |
London: Imagine heading to Manchester's Curry Mile, London's Brick
Lane, or even just to your local curry house and seeing boarded-up windows and
empty streets. Finding the wafts of tempting turmeric and coriander have
vanished, along with a £3.5bn industry. Could Britain's curry crisis really be
so serious?
As soon as the government introduced tough new legislation
in early 2011, making it virtually impossible to employ qualified chefs from
the Indian subcontinent, there were predictions of a curry apocalypse. Already
the cracks are starting to show. Restaurants in some of the UK's most iconic Indian
hotspots have been forced to close. Even Masala World - one of the world's most
respected Indian restaurant groups and owner of the Masala Zone chain -
recently announced that due to a shortage of skilled Indian chefs, they have
scrapped their UK expansion plans.
Enter Bradford College's International Food Academy, which
lies in the heart of Britain's newly crowned Curry Capital 2012. They believe
they have the key to salvation for our nation's favourite food.
"We're keen to promote and encourage British born
chefs," says Colin Burt, Head Chef at the International Food Academy in
Bradford, where students are learning the skills that many 2nd and 3rd
generation immigrants are leaving behind.
Bradford College, one of the biggest in the country, says it
is proud to respond to the needs of the local community. This not only means
providing training to youngsters and those seeking a career change, but to also
provide much needed follow through job placement - vital in a country where 40%
of students are now failing to find graduate level work 2 years after
completing their course.
"Unemployed students can study without affecting their benefits. Indian and Pakistani
restaurants recruit these students directly from the course and 90% of them are
now working," says Burt in an interview.
Initiatives such as this have already been embraced by many
top restaurants looking for new ways to snap up fresh talent.
"I myself am involved in the Apprenticeship Scheme,
giving young people a chance in the industry at this very difficult time,"
says Akbar's restaurant chain founder Shabir Hussain, who trained as a chef at
Bradford College in the 80s, back when he says he was "the only Asian guy
out of three or four hundred catering students!"
Bradford has been expanding its efforts nationwide by this
year opening up its Junior Curry Chef competition to the whole of the UK, and
also partnering up with the industry as much as possible to promote projects
such as the World Curry Festival and the South Asian Curry Competition.
But the weight of the curry crisis can't rest on the
shoulders of one city. Bradford is
proving that a new generation of 'Indian chefs' are right on our doorstep, now
it's time for the rest of Britain to do their bit to ensure a bright future for
the UK's much-loved curry industry.