KERB LIFE

Welcome to the first episode of KERB on the Inside - our new podcast for this new era that none of us saw coming. Joining me is burger maverick and KERB Alumnus Zan Kaufman of Bleecker, sharing thoughts on how she’s attacking this curve ball and how she may even be considering a return to the streets that launched her...

Hosted by KERB founder Petra Barran, with audio production from KERB stalwart Robin Leeburn of Fairly Media and music ℅ pioneer of the UK grime scene, Tottenham’s very own Meridian Dan

To see what KERB and our traders are getting up to on the inside, head to our Keep the Wheels Turning Campaign.

In the final episode of the series of KERB Life, we begin a conversation on equality and diversity, joining a panel of KERB female business owners, breaking down their views on opportunity in street food.

Introducing the show, reporter Robin Leeburn asks KERB founder Petra Barran - live via satellite link-up from her sabbatical in New Orleans, about KERB’s ethos - how to create an equal opportunity for anyone with a dream to run their own business and sell their own food.

With near half of KERB’s traders owned or co-owned by women, we discuss how a modern business landscape, such as London’s thriving street food scene, can rise above stereotypes and leave behind outdated models such as the gender pay gap.

Hosting the panel discussion, Club Mexicana owner Meriel Armitage asks Alicia Weekes of new KERB trader Chale Let’s Eat, Colombian catering co Maize Blaze founder Ruth Christianson and Sonita Timur of Camden curry veterans Sonita’s Kitchen how they got into the street food game. A frank honest discussion tackles sexism in the food business, the juggling act of entrepreneurialism and family, the importance of mentorship and that old street food chestnut, wonky attitudes toward women white van drivers.

Two years ago, something remarkable happened at a small hawker stall in Singapore’s Chinatown market - Chan Hong Men earned a Michelin star for his soya sauce chicken.

And this spring, the man better known as Hawker Chan jetted into London to join KERB’s markets, bringing the crowds flocking to KERB King’s Cross in Granary Square for a limited three-day run of lunchtime services and the chance to eat a Michelin dish for just £6.

It’s fair to say the response was phenomenal - queues lining up daily from dawn, more than 500-deep at times, for a chance to sample the famous dish and get a delicious bargain to boot.

In this episode of KERB Life we’ll meet the man himself to talk roots, fame, starts and crossing-continents on the back of a humble chicken dish and the consistency needed to stay at the top of the game.

Plus we meet the crowds at Granary Square, where Asian food lovers came to get a taste of home, hungry hordes skipped worked for a unique chance for a Michelin-starred lunch and KERB traders did a remarkable thing - crossing the counter to join a line to gasp in wonder over a must-eat street feast.

This KERB Life podcast lifts the biodegradable lid on the London vegan movement in the midst of a plant-powered revolution - on the streets with KERB, across the capital and now in the shopping basket.

Whether it’s the record 160,000 who pledged to stay away from the animal foods for a month during ‘Veganuary’, Tesco reporting a 40% increase in demand for vegan products, or that joke about vegans - we’ve all heard about veganism this year. And ever more are changing their eating habits as a result, citing animal welfare, environmental fears and their own waistlines as motivation.

In this episode, reporter Robin Leeburn joins the leading lights of the London vegan scene, from KERB’s leading food traders to Vevolution’s thought leadership events and markets run by social media influencer Fat Gay Vegan and Vegan Nights, drawing young Londoners to the most switched-on of joints: a meat-free one.

We talk trends with Meriel Armitage of Club Mexicana, whose new spot at the Spread Eagle in Homerton is bringing conscious crowds flocking; innovation with Biff Burrows of Biff’s Jack Shack, where the ‘chick’n’ wings and jackfruit burgers have helped open vegan menus to fast food junkies; plus business and investment with Grace Regan of Spicebox, who secured £450,000 to grow her plant-based catering co.

So with investors looking to cash in, is the vegan movement an unstoppable force?. Cast a glance across the pond, and the tens of millions of venture capital dollars poured into the likes of vegan burger startup Impossible Burger and it might seem so.

Yet it’ll take a lot to wean many of us humans off our taste for flesh. Taking the debate form the other side, we talk food culture, sustainability and consumer choices with committed omnivore Cristiano Meneghin, founder of KERB mainstay Tongue ‘n Cheek and its famous Heartbreaker burger. Plus we go right to the source, venturing to Suffolk pig farmers Dingley Dell Pork to hear about animal welfare and environmental sustainability and ask if the meat industry is worried about the coming vegan force.

So what do you choose? Whether you join the vegan revolution or indulge your carnivorous desires, it’s time to start considering our values when it comes to what we eat...

When it comes to lunch in the city - how much are we willing to pay? How much does it cost to make? What represents value and are we paying enough for food today? KERB opens the book on the numbers game, finding out the true cost of serving a street food dish, why prices are what they are (from quality ingredients to experienced staff and constant running costs) and how the queues on the street translate onto balance sheets. In interviews with Emma Reynolds of Tonkotsu, KERBanists Burger and Beyond and Anna Maes, Robin explores the risks and rewards of running a street food stall and how in a current environment of high-street precariousness, with restaurant chains shutting left right and centre, how food businesses survive in a city like London - with its ever-rising rents and high competition.

We often take our buns and sandwich loaves for granted, but they’re integral to both our meals and community life as we ‘break bread’ together. Forget the plastic-packed ‘freshness’ of supermarket loaves - KERB, London and the UK as a whole are yearning for the simple, healthy pleasures as artisanal bread, going back to the Stone Age basics of flour, salt and water, is re-popularised. Reporter Robin Leeburn needed no second invitation to cross the capital uncovering the stories behind the Bread Network - and found the perfect partner in a true expert: Bridget Hugo - co-founder of famed pizzeria Franco Manca and latterly the founder of Bread Bread Bakery. He also talks to Alice Williams, founder at Luminary Bakery and Adrian Macalari, director of Sally Clarke Bakery and several KERBanists, on his exploration of London’s buzzing bread network.

How do new food startups survive in London’s ultra-competitive scene? Who’s crazy enough to upend their life for a new biz amidst the whirl of KERB life? Why do so many people dream of their own spot on the streets?

In this first episode of series 2 we're talking street food start-ups, KERB’s InKERBator and how setting up is hard to do.

Robin Leeburn opens the box on London’s freshest street food menus and looks at how KERB's three-month trader training and mentorship programme is helping London’s finest street chefs gain a foothold in the big city. 

We meet the next generation of food stars at the KERB Workshop - a day-long where would-be street food traders gain valuable know-how from some of the capital’s leading industry names. Among the speakers is Huw Gott, founder of steak favourites Hawksmoor, who shares his knowledge of how a people-first company can pull together to create success.

Workshop attendees describe why they want to turn their passion for food into their own business and finally, we learn first-hand the transformative power of street food with Liberty Kitchen, providing opportunity and work for current and former inmates at Pentonville Prison.

Our Christmas Special Bonus Episode, where we talk to traders about their favourite festive recipes, hear about what it means to give at this time of year and why charity is so important to KERB and our community and contemplate why , only at this time of year, we forget the latest and greatest food trend or invention and stick to what we know and love in a quest for comfort, familiarity and tradition.

Is it getting harder to find places to trade in London? Do you need to come from a middle class privileged background to start a street food business? Is street food complicit in gentrification? Or can it help inject diversity and culture into an area?is it Is it a sustainable way to make money? Is street food a fad? Are food courts the future? 

This bonus episode is a recording of our first ever panel discussion - part 1 of our ‘Future of London Food‘ series, bringing together the most compelling voices in street food to talk city living and how we eat. Journalist Victoria Stewart hosted, with Zan Kaufman (Bleecker Burger founder), Tony (Anna Mae’sfounder), Regan Koch (lecturer of Human Geography at Queen Mary University) and KERB MD Simon Mitchell look back on the street food revolution and explore the question "where to next?".

In episode 5 Robin weaves through the streets of Hackney Wick, east London, talking to people who have watched the neighbourhood change beyond recognition, discovering how the London 2012 Olympic Games helped to transform the area, thanks to a massive injection of more than £9 billion, followed by an even bigger private investment. The toxic soil and polluted canals were cleaned and mammoth new developments sprung up, including Westfield, one of the largest urban shopping malls in Europe, 5 world-class sports venues, and an entirely new village.