A charity which provides cookery training for adults with learning difficulties has branched out into a second Aberdeenshire town.
Inverurie-based Fly Cup Catering has set up shop in the kitchen and cafe area of the community-run Axis Centre, in Newmachar.
The enterprise will be run by four new members of staff along with a team of trainees with learning difficulties, who will get a grounding in work in the catering industry.
Fly Cup teaches its trainees how to whip up soups, sandwiches, hot meals and baked goods – as well as crucial life skills, such as how to recycle, iron and clean and work alongside staff in a kitchen environment.
There are currently 27 people in training at the charity’s Burghmuir Circle site in Inverurie.
Fly Cup’s business manager, Denise Belshaw, said: “We were approached by the management team of the Axis Centre at the beginning of the year to ascertain whether we might be interested in taking the lease to support their coffee shop.
“I immediately saw the potential to enable us to offer the same training and employment opportunities for adults with learning difficulties living in Dyce and the coastal villages around the area, who are not able to access Inverurie so easily.
“Fly Cup is 15 years old, and what we do in Inverurie we will now do here.
“At the moment it is still a bit quiet but we’re putting out posters, getting new signs made, and just like Inverurie I think it will be supported very well. The Axis Centre is a big new centre and we are just tying in with what they do.”
The team hope to have the first trainees starting at the Axis Centre in June.
It will be open from 9am-4pm from Monday to Saturday.