Commission Bags of Taste

“Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council found out about Bags of Taste through their Health and Wellbeing partnership network in Hertfordshire. After some initial meetings to understand the project, Bags of Taste took over the organisation and delivery of the project. Having a set amount of funding, they were able to adapt the project so it was within our means.

After providing some local knowledge, Bags of Taste did all the publicity and project management, providing updates and evaluation along the way.

The spaces on the programme were snapped up fast and we secured further funding to add to what we felt was an extremely worthwhile and focused initiative.

Thank you Bags of Taste for a great, original initiative, targeting individuals who we might otherwise not have been able to reach.”

Liz PaffleyWelwyn Hatfield Borough Council

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT IS WHAT MAKES US SO EFFECTIVE

Bags of Taste is very different from typical cooking and food interventions – because of what we do, who we work with and how we work with them.

WHAT WE DO

an image showing a nearly empty cupboard on the left and a well stocked cupboard with tins, rice and pasta on the right

For many of our participants, when they get to dinner time, there is nothing but snacks and junk food in the cupboard. There’s frozen pizza in the freezer. The corner store has food but most of it isn’t healthy and it’s 3x the price of the supermarket. The supermarket is a bus ride away. There’s a takeaway round the corner, or there’s always Deliveroo.

Bags of Taste is a household food resilience programme that ensures that people are able to cook and eat healthy, affordable food in the long term. By trying long life, healthy options, encouraging batch cooking and planning, improving time management and showing how to source healthy food locally on a tight budget, we can change the food options available to our participants and help them to adopt better eating habits for the long term.

WHO WE WORK WITH

We target those most in need who are least likely to engage with other services; they are often

unwilling, unable or find it difficult to travel to group settings
have mobility issues or other disabilities
struggle with their mental health
have caring responsibilities
struggle to commit to regular times of day.
often leading chaotic and unpredictable lives

Why our home-based programme is so accessible

Watch this video of participants 1 year after completing the course to see the kinds of people we work with, and our long term outcomes

The people we target

Are mostly referred by other organisations including social prescribing and the NHS
On benefits or on very low incomes, with multiple additional challenges in their lives
Are scored for a range of challenges including poor mental health, long term unemployment, income related benefits, single parenthood, disability & long term conditions, pensioners. The minimum number of challenges to qualify for our course is 4; our average is 5.3.
70% suffer from poor mental health
55% have a long term medical condition or a disability
80% of the people that we work with rate their cooking skills as average to good; yet they are eating unhealthy food and their typical takeaway consumption costs them £1,260 a year.

This intersectionality of challenges and disadvantage makes it extremely difficult for our participants to improve their diets without individual, personalised help.

Our results

86% of participants cooked more frequently after the programme
70% of people identified ways of reducing food costs
78% of all participants completed the programme
Participants expect to save around £1,060 a year after the programme, helping them to keep to their new habits.

We work with many participants like Sarah, who struggle to attend face to face or in person sessions.

“PTSD kept me isolated in my home as I had no friends or support network of any kind the depression side of things got really bad for me. Bags of Taste introduced me to a whole network of people with a common interest and it helped me make the friends I so desperately needed at the time to pull me out of the depressive episode. It gave me a a reason to get up and get in the kitchen and have some fun cooking. It’s helped me in so many different ways but the main part was the social side. Part of my PTSD leaves me stuck indoors with agoraphobia and making friends is impossible living like this”

Listen to Sarah talking about how Bags of Taste helped her with her PTSD

(1 min listen)

HOW WE WORK WITH THEM

People we work with are juggling complex, challenging lives. This leads to them to make food choices that are unhealthy and expensive. We have a deep insight into the barriers that our participants face daily, and have developed the programme to address these issues and embed behaviour change.

These barriers are collectively known as the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). Learn more about the people we work with and how the Social Determinants of Health affect them here.

Here are 4 reasons why we’re different.

1. ACCESSIBLE

We support people in their own homes, at a time of their choosing. This not only ensures that our programmes are more accessible and flexible – fitting around people’s lives and individual limitations – but we have found that the behaviours and attitudes people develop in the relaxed environment of their own kitchen (especially when cooking with their families) are far more likely to be embedded and sustained, compared to the artificial environment of typical out-of-home cookery classes.

2. HOLISTIC

Our focus isn’t simply on teaching cooking skills – in fact, most of our participants already know how to cook – but on helping people overcome the practical and psychological barriers to shopping, cooking and eating more healthily. For example, our trained mentors provide advice on shopping locally on a budget, reducing food waste, encouraging children to eat more healthily and coping with limited kitchen equipment. The daily support, practical advice, accountability and encouragement they provide is the reason why so many people complete our programmes.

3. PERSONAL

Participants are individually supported by high quality mentors – most of our mentors are qualified nutritionists and food teachers and are then further trained by us in how to work with vulnerable people.

4. EXPERIENCED

Over the last 10 years we have worked with 14,000 participants across the country, and have successfully worked with specialist cohorts including people in recovery from alcohol and addiction, diabetes, ex offenders, people with mental health conditions who were recently sectioned, people with physical disabilities including visual impairment, and debilitating conditions like ME and fibromyalgia. This deep experience and understanding of the challenging lives of our participants helps us to support them in a very tailored, personal way.

Our different, home-centred approach, is the reason why Bags of Taste has proven to be such an effective programme, delivering measurable and sustainable dietary change, financial savings and benefits to participants’ physical and mental health.

OUR RESULTS

Because Bags of Taste is an authority on dietary health inequalities and dietary behaviour change, a wide range of public health and charity organisations commission us to provide our Mentored Home Cooking Programme.

Our evidence-based course draws upon proven methods that create and sustain dietary change, producing a long-term behavioural intervention resulting in better physical, mental and financial health.

Our long term evaluations, undertaken by independent, expert nutritionists, show sustained long term change and significant reduction in takeaway spend, particularly by those that consumed the most.

“…this recipe was the first task I have done confidently in my own house since I was registered blind in 2013”

– Mona, Tower Hamlets, August 2024

Our tailored solutions

We work with our commissioners to tailor solutions to their cohorts’ specific needs, including dietary requirements (e.g. diabetics), and one-to-one mentoring for those that require it. We have run many specialist programmes for everything from drug and alcohol rehabilitation, long term conditions, ex offenders, care leavers and people with learning disabilities. This specialist expertise is also used in our general programmes where we have a wide mix of most of these issues facing our participants.

” An innovative and flexible project for people facing multiple life challenges.

Our participants are cooking from scratch more than they’ve done for ages and [are] finding the course informative and fun.

Exceptionally high rates of people complete the course.”

– Tracey Williams, Programme Manager, Connecting Communities Redbridge

” Accessible, practical, and affordable cooking courses that empower individuals to make healthier dietary choices.

Aligns seamlessly with our mission to address health inequalities and support sustainable lifestyle changes among our patients.

Their supportive and non-judgmental approach fosters an environment where individuals feel motivated to make positive changes, particularly those patients facing financial hardship, food insecurity, and long-term health conditions. “

– Violeta Pelemis, Development Manager, London Fields PCN

We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without the generosity and dedication of our donors, supporters and referrers.

For those of us who fund and commission us – thank you all so much for supporting Bags of Taste and helping us change the lives of people living in food poverty, and for helping raise awareness of our work. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you! You are wonderful!

Get in touch to commission Bags of Taste