Food For London Now: Jose Mourinho digs in to help feed Londoners

Jose Mourinho headed for the kitchen garden at the Tottenham Hotspur training centre to harvest fresh fruit and vegetables as he joined our mission to feed vulnerable Londoners and lauded our Food For London Now appeal.

The Spurs manager paid special tribute to the triumvirate — comprising our campaign partner The Felix Project, the Evening Standard and Tottenham Hotspur — as a “great example” of “coming together to help beat Covid-19”.

When we launched our month-old appeal, we broke the news that the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in Haringey had become the first community hub to open as part of an ambitious pan-London initiative involving every local authority to distribute surplus food to Londoners in need.

Mourinho was loading his car with trays of freshly picked spinach, rainbow chard, rhubarb, chives, parsley and garlic as well as other seasonal produce.

He said: “Today I make my first delivery of produce from our kitchen garden to the giant food distribution hub in operation at our stadium. From here, fresh fruit and vegetables originally intended for our first team restaurant will instead go to feed some of the most vulnerable people within our community during this pandemic.”

He added: “I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who is working extremely hard to ensure this vital food is reaching those most in need at this time — including The Felix Project and all involved with the Evening Standard’s Food For London Now appeal.

“This is a great example of how the people of this great city are coming together and I am proud to be playing my small part, with the help of my club.”

Last week, Mourinho recorded a short video message, above, during which he thanked the NHS frontline heroes, some of whom have been receiving food parcels from The Felix Project.

He said: “Hi Jose here. … I will be volunteering my time to help out in the garden and take this food to the stadium as we fight this pandemic together … I’d like to thank all our frontline heroes for the incredible work they are doing to keep us safe at this time.”

Our appeal has raised more than £3 million for The Felix Project, which has scaled up to quadruple its daily food deliveries to the equivalent of an incredible 100,000 meals a day.

This week the Standard pledged to raise £10 million to address rising food poverty across the capital.