Queen Camilla attended a special gathering at Canary Wharf’s Eden Dock on June 4 to launch The Big Lunch, which celebrates community, friendship and nature.
The event brought together community groups, charities and residents from Tower Hamlets and across the UK.
Shobi Khan, chief executive of Canary Wharf Group (CWG), said: “We were honoured to host The Queen at Eden Dock, in the heart of the wharf, as patron of The Big Lunch.
“This is a special opportunity to come together with our community to celebrate in this urban oasis.
“Our pioneering partnership with Eden Project has transformed this space, connecting our community to the waterfront and enriching the ecology and biodiversity of our neighbourhood.
“Our Big Lunch brings together positive change makers including charities, social enterprises, community groups as well as the recipients of CWG’s community grants programme – a true demonstration of how people and nature can thrive together.”
The Queen, patron of The Big Lunch since 2013, was welcomed to the event by broadcaster and ambassador Angela Rippon.
Angela introduced the finalists of The Big Lunch Recipe Search, a competition to find dishes that can be shared and enjoyed by communities across the country.
Finalists were all congratulated by The Queen, who then revealed Melanie Booth, a teacher from Westbury in Wiltshire, as the overall winner.
To mark the occasion, The Queen unveiled a celebratory cake featuring each of the finalists’ dishes.
The event also included community members from Tower Hamlets and children from Mulberry Primary School, who took part in nature-themed crafts led by the Eden Project’s education team.
Representatives from The Felix Project presented a sharing cake inspired by nature, made with summer flowers, lemon verbena and honey from the Eden Project’s gardens in Cornwall.
Other participating organisations from Tower Hamlets included Mindful Photo Lab, Circle Collective, ELBA, St Matthias Conservation Trust, Beyond the Bias, Radojunkie, Strafford Street Friendship Club, Women’s Inclusive Team, and the East End Community Foundation.
The Big Lunch is an initiative of the Eden Project, supported by the Pears Foundation, Co-op and Greene King.
The project aims to bring people together each year through shared food and conversation.
Andy Jasper, chief executive of the Eden Project, said: “Her Majesty the Queen has been patron of The Big Lunch for over a decade.
“On behalf of Eden Project, we are delighted and incredibly grateful that she has joined us here at the unique Big Lunch at Eden Dock, created proudly with Canary Wharf Group to celebrate with the local community and bring people and nature together.”
Eden Dock, a collaboration between the Eden Project and CWG, has transformed the historic Middle Dock into a biodiverse green space designed to connect people with nature.
According to the Eden Project, 80 per cent of Big Lunch participants report feeling more connected to nature as a result of taking part, and 79pc say it inspires them to support the environment more actively.
Since its launch in 2009, The Big Lunch has grown into a national tradition, with an estimated 10 million people taking part in 2024, including 617,000 volunteers.
