Ed is passionate about creating a fairer, more tolerant and diverse labour force and promotes issues surrounding immigration, social justice and inclusion from the kitchen. Even before the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, the LEE initiative has been at the forefront of social causes. Ed’s NGO was created to promote training, mentoring and investment programmes in young talent. Initiatives such as the Restaurant Regrow Program offers immediate relief for culinary communities across Kentucky such as financial support and assistance to restaurants and food service workers that have been affected by then Covid-19 crisis. Whilst the Restaurant Workers Relief Programme has distributed 140,000 meals to unemployed workers in the catering industry with the help of local leaders in 19 cities in the United States. The creation of community kitchens helped to alleviate some of the impacts of the crisis in communities and the launch of the Reboot Relief Reboot Program helped to reactivate the base of the production chain by engaging with small producers and reconnecting broken production chains.
