Liverpool FC and Joie create new Academy family garden
Liverpool FC has teamed up with club partner Joie to create a new sustainable garden for staff, players and their families to enjoy at the Academy.
The Joie family garden has been designed as a welcoming outdoor seating space for visitors to relax in, and for families of Academy players to enjoy when watching the youngsters play.
The design is also accessible for wheelchair users and suitable for pushchairs.
With an array of vegetables and herbs growing in the garden - including cabbages, lettuce, carrots and tomatoes - it will provide a sustainable source of ingredients for the club's chefs to use across its multiple sites and food stands as part of LFC's The Red Way initiative.
The Red Way is an easy way to understand how the club is contributing to a better future for Reds to come by pulling together all its sustainability-related activity under one initiative.
Alex Inglethorpe, Liverpool's Academy manager, and Joie's managing director, David Welsh, visited the new garden to cut the ribbon and officially unveil the space to visitors this week.
"What a fantastic addition the new Joie family garden is to the Academy," said Inglethorpe.
"As a club, our strong family values are deep-rooted in our traditions, so it's a great place for relatives and friends to come and relax as they support our young players along their journey.
"It's also incredibly important that across the club we continue to back The Red Way initiative by helping to create even more ways to foster greater food sustainability and reduce our environmental impact."
Welsh said: "It was a great honour to be invited along to cut the ribbon and officially open the garden.
"Joie has a strong ethos of 'family first' so we are delighted to have been able to play our part in creating a space like this for the families of the next generation of young Reds."