by Jacqueline Pennington

Mark Allison’s affinity for cooking started early, all the way back to his time growing up in a small town in the UK. Allison was the only boy in his class to choose home economics while his friends took up metal or wood working. The basic skills he learned in that classroom and his love for food led him to take a job in a kitchen when he was 16 years old. From there, his career path was set. “I always had an interest in food, so I thought let’s try and become a cook or chef and see where it takes me,” Allison says. “46 years later I’m still doing exactly the same thing and enjoying it. I tell people I haven’t worked a day in my life because I love what I do.”

It wasn’t until Allison was 24 that he decided to go to culinary school, where he earned a degree in education and a masters in business. He then took a part-time role teaching and was a natural in the classroom. “It’s funny how things fall into place,” Allison says. “A job came up in South Wales. It was actually the very first teaching job I’d seen in a two year period because, obviously, these jobs are hard to come by because you’re basically working Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 as opposed to every night and on weekends. I applied for the job and got it so I moved to South Wales and became an instructor.”

Allison pushed his students to excel and over the ten years that he worked as a culinary educator in South Wales, his students won or placed second in every major culinary competition that they entered in Europe. “Luckily enough, that’s what caught the eye of Johnson and Wales University,” Allison says. “They reached out and asked me to work for them. So, in 2004, myself, my wife, and my three boys moved to America.” Allison soon became the Dean of Culinary Arts at Johnson and Wales and was in charge of 1,400 students and 60 staff members. 

In 2008, Allison and his family took on the unimaginable when his wife, Alison, was diagnosed with cancer. Eventually, he left education to care for her. She passed away in 2015.

“That was the first time in my life I was out of work,” Allison says. “I got a telephone call from David H. Murdoch, who was the billionaire owner of the Dole Food Company, and he wanted to hire me to be in charge of their culinary nutrition program. That’s really when I got involved with food as medicine. Before that, I was trying to feed my wife the best food I possibly could and I’ve got two boys who are type one diabetics, so I’ve always tried to feed them healthy as well.”

Allison worked on a $800 million campus that’s a hub for seven universities studying fruits and vegetables, people’s diet, and how to improve people’s lives. “Mr. Murdoch, when he hired me, he was 93 years old and still the CEO of the company,” Allison says. “He just passed away in July at the age of 102. He bought the Dole Food Company because his wife had cancer but he couldn’t save her, even though he was a billionaire. He just thought food has got to be some kind of cause of cancer. My job was to work with scientists to prove the benefits of eating whole foods.” 

The work that Allison took on with Dole sparked his interest in how closely the food we choose to eat is tied to our health. When it came time for Allison to shift gears, he decided to use what he learned from that experience to start his own business

“I thought, what would I like to do now?,” Allison says. “I love food. I’ve always enjoyed working out. I love getting out in the fresh air. I love being positive. And I thought, ‘You know what? Why don’t we just put this all together and package it and just see if anybody out there feels the same way?’” Midlife Wellness and Beyond, the resulting business, works with companies to create health and wellness programs, recipe development, and brand ambassadorship. He’s written several cookbooks that focus on how to cook nutritious meals with one that specifically focuses on type one diabetes. He also does individual health and wellness programs for clients who want to learn how to cook, exercise, and be more positive in life. With his company, he’s sharing the knowledge that he’s uncovered in his work and through his personal experiences.

“I think one of the biggest problems we’ve got in this country at the minute, and not just this country, but probably around the world, is the fact that we don’t teach home economics at school anymore,” Allison says. “Or, if we do, it’s a very small program. If you do not know how to cook food, then you do not know how to choose healthy food, and you don’t know how to prepare it. So, it’s a life skill, and either your parents are going to teach it or school really needs to teach it because 85 percent of all chronic illnesses, heart disease, type two diabetes, and cancers are food-related. We’ve got an epidemic on our hands because of ultra-processed foods. People aren’t eating actual real food. I think it’s one of the basic life skills. Everybody should know how to cook.”

Alongside the work with his clients, Allison has also started an annual event called Fork Cancer as a tribute and celebration of life for his late wife. It all started when he brought up the idea to his good friend, Mike Pruitt, over coffee about four years ago. Pruitt, whose wife is a breast cancer survivor, offered to use a social club he was running to host the party if Allison could put together the details. “I just reached out to eight chefs in Charlotte and asked them if they would mind doing a dinner party,” he says. “I was thinking that one or two chefs would agree and here all eight said they would love to be involved. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. And now we’re in the fourth year and we’ve basically sold out.” 

This year’s event will take place on Sept. 6 at the Marriott City Center. Ten Charlotte chefs, including UPPY winners Raffaele Patrizi, Samantha Ward, and Sam Diminich, will prepare a four course meal for attendees and all proceeds will directly benefit education, research, funding, and support for Charlotte cancer patients and survivors. This fourth event will not only take place during the year that marks the ten year anniversary of his wife’s passing, but it will also take place on her birthday.