Read our recent blog from our CEO, Alicia Weston on what we’re doing at Bags of Taste to support people during the cost of living crisis.
Years of experience
If you’ve not heard of Bags of Taste, we’ve been around for some time.
Since 2014, we’ve inspired 7,000 people to improve their health, diets, finance, giving them more independence and control about what they eat.
When we started out, our aim was to try to understand what prevented people from cooking.
So we listened and created something that helped people to overcome the many barriers.
We believe that everyone should be able to afford, buy and cook good food.
Why we offer more than a cookery course
80% of the people we work with rate their cooking skills as average to good; yet for many eating healthily is a challenge.
The course is structured so it’s as easy as possible for the students to create healthy, affordable food at home.
Pre-packaged spices mean that people can experiment without having to waste money or try something that the kids might like.
The free equipment like the knife sharpener makes the preparation and the cooking easier.
This is why cookery courses alone don’t work for many people but our courses consistently get results.
Our Mentored course
It’s a bit like those meal kits that you get delivered but for those on a budget.
But there is a huge difference.
We provide a mentor for each student who encourages them along the way.
Each of our students get a free bag of ingredients and the basic equipment delivered to their home.
In small groups over Whatsapp or the phone, they cook three recipes.
Our mentors encourage and support.
Groups are fun, friendly and everyone shares their progress.
The students tell us repeatedly that they feel more confident and motivated.
They’re inspired to cook more from scratch and can save lots of money.
Cooking at home has also meant that they’re doing the course with their kids.
At the end of the course, students join one of our long term support groups so they can continue cooking, saving money and changing their diets for life.
Results
- 86% of participants cook more frequently after the course
- 71% said that they feel more confident to cook
- Our students tell us they can save on average £18 a week.
Cost of living
Whilst we can’t address the root causes of the cost of the living crisis, what we can do is help people so they can cook healthy, affordable food at home.
Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing tips, tricks and recipes that we’ve been using successfully for years, we hope that we can help people to make their money go that little bit further.
Look out for these on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.
Why our work is needed more than ever
We promoted our course recently in Thanet and we saw a 100% increase in enquiries from the local community kitchen.
This is hugely worrying to see and we know that there are many more people struggling now because of the cost of living crisis and the increase in energy prices.
Our work is now needed more than ever.
If you want to make a difference and support more people so they can cook, healthy and affordable food at home, please consider donating to us.
