Tom Kerridge has said that the £160k that has been raised for his Meals for Marlow scheme is ‘unbelievable’, as he continues to help the nurses on the front line, as well as the needy and vulnerable.

The celebrity chef who lives in the town launched the initiative on Thursday, April 2 and within five days, their initial target of £100k was reached.

He now hopes to reach a grand total of £170k so that around 1,000 meals a day can be made.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Tom Kerridge launches Meals for Marlow campaign

Speaking to the Bucks Free Press, Tom said: “The cost of making a meal is about £4 a dish so I thought we’ll try and make this work for about 10 weeks and since we’ve started, people have grabbed onto it and it’s been amazing.

“Buying a meal is so important and it’s super special that members of the public are donating but on top of that, businesses in the area have been incredible.

“We’ve got lots of £5k and £10k donations which have been amazing then the Shanly Foundation put £25k which was just fantastic – that was a breathtaking amount of money.

“When you sit and watch the news, it’s been quite depressing as it’s a grave situation. We’re not doctors or nurses and we can’t help.

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“So to raise the money to feed the doctors and nurses so that they can keep going along with the needy and vulnerable was something we wanted to do.”

The chef, along with his Pub in the Park festival team and entrepreneurs Chris Hughes and Andy Agar, launched the initiative after they saw a social media post by Wexham Park Hospital, which said that members of their staff were not eating properly due to the current pandemic.

Many nurses were either eating from vending machines or were not eating at all after finishing their 16-18-hour shifts.

This was due to the lack of food that was in the supermarkets.

So, after seeing the post, Tom knew he wanted to do something to help.

He continued: “We’ve got this unit that makes pies for British Airways as well as for football clubs and for Formula One but with all of that being cancelled, we’ve got this airline food safe unit with all this food so let’s see what we can do with it.

“I then contacted my furloughed staff to see if anyone wanted to volunteer and loads of people came forward.

“We started off doing a few meals but then we realised that we could a bit more, so we set up a Go Fund Me page to spread the word about it and the support has been amazing.”

Visit here to donate to Meals for Marlow.