What we’ve been up to in 2021
Reaching out!
As 2021 is nearly over, we wanted to let you know what we’ve been up to at Bags of Taste.
- We’re delighted to say that 1,500 students have taken part in one of our Mentored home cooking courses across London, Thanet, Hastings and Sheffield
- We’ve worked again in Maldon and in Hounslow and in 2022, we’re expanding into Newham and Sutton
More cooking & more confidence
Student feedback has been hugely positive with:
- A 77% average graduation rate
- 69% saying they feel more confident to cook from scratch
- 69% said they would cook more
- On average, a weekly cost saving of £15 has been identified.
Read our testimonials to see what our participants say
- We also did an independent evaluation of our courses with 60 students 6 months on so we could measure our impact
- This showed that 86% of our students were continuing to cook 6 months after the course with 78% using our Bags of Taste recipes
- Many reported improvements in physical health like losing weight and increased energy.
- Changes also included improvements to pre-existing health conditions such as arthritis and diabetes
- Many told us they felt more confident, generally healthier and better ‘within themselves’.
Specialist groups
- We’ve worked with more specialist groups this year – diabetes prevention, care leavers and Fibromyalgia and ME support groups. (Read about our specialist work)
- We’ve produced specialist resources for people with diabetes and also for people with long term illnesses or disabilities who might need some adaptions to take part.
- Many students are cooking at home with their children so our outcomes also have inter-generational benefits
- Lots of our students have told us they like the courses as they can take part at a time that suits them and there’s no pressure.
So all in all, a productive year. Thanks to all of you who made it happen.
We look forward to sharing with you what we’re doing in 2022.
