Our Supporters
headline supporter
supporter supporter
commercial supporter
Pledge at least £1 per
year - and pass The Curry
Tree message on to
other curry fans.
year - and pass The Curry
Tree message on to
other curry fans.
One child dies every 5
seconds from hunger
related causes.
over £30bn will be spent
in restaurent curry
sector 2008 to 2022.
The Past:Over the past 10 years National Curry Week has raised funds for numerous charities, the most recent being Action Against Hunger and Oxfam. We now feel we can be more effective by focusing and targeting our efforts to drastically improve our contribution to helping to alleviate the plight of the malnourished, starving and poor of South East Asia and the world.
Name Origin:
The Curry Tree Charitable Fund is named after the small tree which carries the curry leaf so much enjoyed in dishes throughout Britain and worldwide. The Curry Tree or Kadipatta or Sweet Neem leaf.(Murraya koenigii; syn. Bergera koenigii, Chalcas koenigii) is a tropical to sub-tropical tree in the family Rutaceae, which is native to India. Its leaves are highly aromatic and are used as a herb. Various biological activities of Murraya koenigii include antidiabetic, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, anti-hypercholesterolemic.
The Curry Tree is quite small(up to 6m high) but of an importance way beyond its size which seems fit in well with the thinking behind the creation of The Curry Tree Charible Fund.
The History:
In 1808 Dean Mahomed from Patna, Bihar, settled in Portman Square in what is now London's West End - in fact not far from where we are sitting tonight. A year later he opened the first Indian restaurant in Britain - The Hindostanee Coffee House - just round the corner in George Street. It was aimed at Anglo-Indians for the "enjoyment of Hookha, with 'real chilm tobacco', and Indian dishes 'in the highest perfection, and allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England', in a setting decorated with Indian and Oriental scenes. The food was good - the setting was good - the time was wrong. Three years later he was bankrupt.
200 hundred years later curry houses have become very much part of the fabric of British life with Chicken Tikka Masala being famously described as our national dish by onetime Foreign Secretary the late Robin Cook. From that 1 restaurant in 1809 the industry has grown to some 9500 today generating huge amounts for the exchequer and employing close to 100,000 people.
Over that 200 year period the industry has served 2.5 billion people - a figure to be exceeded in just 20 years to come - and over £30 billion has been spent on food alone, a figure that will be beaten in the coming 15 years. During these 200 years people have consumed nearly 5 billion poppadums and 400 million portions of Chicken Tikka Masala.
These are the staggering figures that have made their mark on the social fabric of Britain and have become part of our culture.
Some 23 million people (over a third of the population) in Britain eat out on a regular basis and most of these enjoy a restaurant curry on one or more occasion whilst millions of other get takeaways, cook at home or buy ready made from the supermarket.
Why the Fund?
* In 2000 the United Nations stated that over 800 million men, women and children are denied the most basic human right of all ; the right to food.
* Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.
* In 2005, almost 1.4 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 per day.
Our Target?
From one National Curry Week to the next (one year) to raise as much as possible for The Curry Tree Charitable Fund to able to distribute to those worthwhile causes and charities decided upon by the Trustees with the ultimate target of £1 per person eating out per year (£23 million)
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If you own a restaurant join our roots as a supporter and if you manufacture or sell a curry or curry-related product, become a coporate supporter of The Curry Tree and just see what we can achieve info@thecurrytree.com