During October 2004 Coleman Project Space was occupied with operation SOS:OK (SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS), the largest ever simulation of an Emergency Relief Food operation in London to test the readiness of its emergency rescue services. The aim: to test a prototype for an emergency biscuit that is nutritionally and culturally appropriate as well as logistically convenient for delivery to uprooted and disaster affected populations in the first stages of an emergency. The biscuit, envisaged as the prototype for a high-protein, fortified, is a stand-alone ready to eat food to respond to the escalating number of man-made and natural humanitarian emergencies.

The mock relief food operation was held at the art gallery in Webster Road, on the site adjacent to the former Peek Freans. Known as ‘the biscuit town’, it was the first biscuit factory to be involved in a food rescue operation, that of feeding the starving population of Paris, after the raising of the siege of the city, which took place during the Franco-German War of 1870. During the exercise, more than 400 volunteers pretended to be the victimes of a major terror attack and underwent a food assistance operation, which involved the distribution of appropriate and nutritious biscuits on a timely basis by the relief crew to the starving population. A spokesperson for the London Emergency Services said that “the exercise was as realistic as possible”.