Bradford & District | Archive | 2002 | September | 27
From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Friday 27th Sep 2002.
A Bradford restaurant owner is spearheading talks with employment and teaching organisations to tackle a shortage of curry chefs.
Mohammed Aslam, managing director of the Aagrah chain of restaurants, wants to spice up the image of the Asian catering trade.
Not enough people are going into the industry, which could jeopardise Bradford's title of Curry Capital.
But Mr Aslam is keen to resolve the problem and has held discussions with Brad-ford College, the University of Bradford, Jobcentre Plus, West Yorkshire Learning and Skills Council, Bradford Council, Connexions, News-quest Bradford and QED.
"The idea of the meeting was to give everybody something to think about before it hits us too hard. There are fewer and fewer people going into the catering trade," he said.
"We need to promote courses within the colleges so Asian people are inspired to join and we need a figurehead such as a celebrity Asian chef so that young people can be encouraged."
Mr Aslam offers training courses and one of his ideas is to set up a school of excellence for Asian food to produce good quality chefs.
Tom Johnston, head of management, hospitality and leisure studies at Bradford College, said they were keen to work with the restaurants to tackle the shortage.
"We are definitely taking it on board. We do work with the Aagrah staff who come into the college to do specialist training and we want to raise the profile of Asian cookery in Bradford."
He said qualifications which included Asian and Oriental cookery modules were waiting to be approved and could soon be introduced.
Dr Mohammed Ali, chief executive of QED, an economic agency helping thousands of people from South Asian backgrounds to realise their business ambitions, said it needed to be promoted as a worthwhile occupation.
He said curry meals were becoming classier and Bradford needed to prepare its industry to capitalise on this.
"There was a tradition where people used to drink eight pints of lager and go to the curry house but people now want more sophistication," he said.
"People are becoming very choosy about the kind of meal they have, which means we need better qualified chefs."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008