DJ 'It's Danny T' and Candypants founder team up to deliver gourmet food to Leeds' care workers

DJ, 'It's Danny T' and entrepreneur Ray Chan are behind the new company BPrep which makes and delivers healthy prepared food to your door - but with the party season postponed they are using their time to help feed the key workers putting in long shifts and having to live away from their families.

They are looking to raise £5,000 so that they can give away 2,500 meals and have already been given a kick-start by Leeds business-people Mahmood Mazhar and Danielle Buck with a £1000 donation.

Dishes on the menu at BPrep, which delivers across West Yorkshire, include lean mince cottage pie, mixed bean chilli, grilled chicken and roasted vegetables and salmon teriyaki.

DJ Danny Taylor said the business partnership with Mr Chan, who is behind the Candypants party brand (which throws events in the UK, Dubai, Marbella, Ibiza, America) and Man's Market restaurant in Leeds, was just about to launch but rather than let the coronavirus outbreak put it on hold, they decided they could help frontline workers.

Mr Taylor, who grew up in Cookridge, said: "We were literally in the process of launching and had everything in place. We had staff that we could not furlough because they had not even started their first week at work so, thought 'let's just run with it' to keep staff working.

"We started initially with a target of £5,000 and that will get 2,500 meals. The money that is being raised is going to the frontline but the care homes are being forgotten about. Everybody deserves shouting about.

"We are hearing of nurses using foodbanks, doing 13 hour shifts and finishing at 8pm but the supermarkets have closed early and the last thing they want to do is cook. There are also a lot living in hotels."

Mr Taylor has de-branded his DJ tour bus and is using it to deliver the meals. He also plans to do some live DJ sets on facebook and hold raffles to raise extra funds to get the meals out. A fundraising page has been created at https://www.gofundme.com/f/bprep where it says a £2 donation will pay for one meal.

This weekend would have seen the artist, who sold out the firstdirect arena for his first stadium gig last year, play the first of 15 contracted dates in Dubai. He was also booked onto 78 flights this year for dates across the summer season from Spain to Greece.

He added: "My mum has done a lot of charity work over the years and even as a child she would be getting me involved. If I can't get to work I might as well do something for the greater good."

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