Tiger Brands has sponsored the development of a state-of-the-art Training Kitchen at the newly established Ashton Vocational Academy in the Langeberg Municipality region of the Western Cape, to help students acquire essential food preparation skills while providing nutritious meals at the academy.
The kitchen is one of two that Tiger Brands has committed to the Ashton Vocational Academy, as well as nutritional food ingredients, at a total value of one-million-rand. Tiger Brands will re-stock the kitchen with essential nutritional food ingredients for a year. The first kitchen is now operational while the second will be built in the first quarter of 2026 when the academy expands and opens its doors to more students.
Ashton Vocational Academy, a no-fee institution, is supported by the local nonprofit organisation Ashton in Action, in partnership with the Western Cape Education Department (WED). It offers a diverse skills curriculum with elective that include Hospitality (focusing on food preparation), Maintenance, Automotive Repair and Ancillary Health Care, as well as other workplace readiness training programmes.
Food preparation skills training will provide students with the necessary skills to increase opportunities for employment within the food industry or to start their own business.
“The prosperity of the Langeberg and Ashton communities and that of Tiger Brands as a business has been integrally linked for decades. Besides being an employer to many of the families in and around the area, as one of the largest food producers in the country and in the Western Cape, food security within these communities has been an important social priority for us.
“The Ashton Vocational Academy provides us another opportunity to help build resilient and sustainable communities who can provide for themselves long into the future without becoming entirely dependent on external support. Students will learn invaluable skills to nourish and nurture healthy communities and to improve their future livelihoods,” says Maanda Milubi, External Affairs Director, Tiger Brands.
Tiger Brands has a long-standing relationship with the community of Langeberg. Its deciduous fruit processing factory, Langeberg and Ashton Foods, is one of the largest employers in the area.
Through Langeberg and Ashton Foods, Tiger Brands supports the surrounding community through several socio-economic development initiatives, including providing monthly food hampers to vulnerable families, as well as provide canned fruit and ingredients, bread and gas in support of school soup kitchens in the area.
Schools in and around Ashton are participants in Eduplant, a school greening programme run by Tiger Brands and Food and Trees for Africa, which supports learner nutrition through the establishment of vegetable gardens on site.
In addition, the Tiger Brands Foundation operates its national in-school breakfast programme at surrounding primary schools. The Tiger Brands Foundation in-school breakfast programme, run in partnership with the Department of Basic Education’s National School Nutrition Programme, provides learners with nutritious meals daily to enhance their learning capacity.
In recent years, Tiger Brands has supported the Ashton Municipality with generators worth more than R1-million, as well as necessary expertise, to ensure water supply to the town, which is impacted during times of power outages, including loadshedding.