How we’ve grown
When Bags of Taste started in 2014, Alicia was the only member of staff and she worked with 2 volunteers. There’s now 14 staff and 1 full-time staff member staff, more than 200 volunteers, and 6 board members.
Our Management Team
Alicia Weston
Founder and CEO
Bags of TasteAlicia trained as Pharmacologist and then worked in venture capital & investment banking for 18 years as well as the New Economics Foundation think-tank.
After setting up the Parkholme Supper Club in her home to raise funds for Medicins sans Frontieres by cooking gourmet world food on a minimal budget, she re-developed this idea to create Bags of Taste.
Having given cooking lessons when she worked at Crisis, Alicia knew that budgets were tight for students but also that lessons alone don’t change diets. This inspired her to design a new type of cooking course using behavioural science to ensure lasting change.
Alicia is often asked to contribute to reports and research on issues around poverty and food insecurity and to lecture on health inequalities and food poverty. She has participated on a DEFRA steering committee for the National Food Strategy and was in 2019 awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Honours List, for services to the community through Bags of Taste.
As CEO, Alicia is head of the Management team.
Babs Fry
Director of Operations
Bags of TasteBabs has been with Bags of Taste through its whole journey and was a student on the pilot course back in 2014. Since then, Babs, a mother of 5, has not only cooked most of the Bags of Taste recipes but also has been a volunteer and taught some of our courses.
Sarah Hooker
Head of Fundraising and Communications
Bags of TasteSarah has over 20 years’ experience working in fundraising for the not-for-profit sector with a range of national and local charities. She has worked in a number of different fundraising specialisms including: trusts and foundations; major donors; corporate fundraising; events; community fundraising; individual giving, and communications and marketing.
Sarah’s role encompasses not only fundraising but wider organisational communications and new business development.
Helen Buckland
Project Outcomes & Monitoring, Area Head Representative
Bags of TasteHelen started her career working in the catering industry before retraining as a Food and Nutrition teacher. She taught KS3 and GCSE Food and Nutrition for many years, is a GCSE examiner and moderator and has written several textbooks on Food and Nutrition.
Helen started working as an Area Head in 2020 and has successfully established Bags of Taste projects across a number of areas. She supports, advises and monitors all our areas to ensure best practice is adopted across the organisation.
Our Area Heads
Susan McLaren
Area Head: Hackney
Bags of TasteSusan worked for many years in central government on welfare, employment and other social policy issues. Since 2011, she has divided her time between teaching, working on community projects dealing with financial well-being, and studying for a PhD in public policy.
Shriya Mistry
Area Head: Haringey
Bags of TasteShriya started off as a volunteer for Bags of Taste before becoming Area Head in Haringey. She volunteered in Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets and loved seeing people benefit from new life-changing skills and watching their confidence grow.
With a background and interest in marketing and nutrition, promoting the work of Bags of Taste within the local community and sharing the benefits of healthy eating is the perfect role for her.
Jo Durkin
Area Head: Hastings
Bags of TasteJo volunteered for Bags of Taste for 12 months before becoming area head for Hastings. She has a background in social care supporting vulnerable adults, and a lifelong passion for cooking, making this her ideal role.
Justin Roebuck
Area Head: Islington
Bags of TasteJustin volunteered for two years before setting up Bags of Taste, Islington in 2016. As an established part of the community sector in Islington, Justin has played an instrumental part in setting up a food action plan for the borough.
We’ve held courses in community centres as well as our Mentored courses throughout Islington and have changed the lives of over 700 residents.
Sandra Tabi
Area Recruiter: Merton
Bags of TasteI volunteered as a mentor for Bags of Taste, because I loved the idea of helping and supporting people to be able to eat a healthy nutritious diet despite being on low incomes and others with challenging factors in their lives. So when the opportunity came to reach out to the residents of Merton to help them make better food choices and improve their finances I jumped at the challenge!
In addition to Bags of Taste, I also help out at my local Food Bank; and I work with another charity that helps people access reliable information on nutrition.
Liesel Akers
Area Head: Sheffield
Bags of TasteLiesel applied to work at Bags of Taste as she loved the idea of giving people the tools to cook healthier and cheaper meals. She loves that the Bags of Taste recipes are simple and give people the confidence to try new things. She’s started cooking a lot over the past few years since moving out of the family home and she knows first hand how important good nutrition is. She really enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes weekly.
Her background is in fashion design and she also works at a fancy dress company as well as running her own small business.
Adele Buckland
Area Head: Thanet
Bags of TasteAdele is the Area Head for Thanet.
Adele’s background is in sales and admin and she also has her own cleaning and property management business. She loves supporting the students at Bags of Taste and helping them with their cooking and motivating them to try new dishes.
Luisa del Gatto
Area Recruiter: Tower Hamlets
Bags of TasteLuisa started the journey with Bags of Taste as a volunteer mentor. She greatly enjoys supporting students to find new ways to cook healthy dishes on a budget, and seeing how nutrition contributes towards greater health.
Her passion for travel has meant that she has tried dishes from all corners of the world. She is particularly aware of the issues around food inequalities and the way in which local organisations can address this gap.
Bringing years of sales and customer services experience to the role, she is now working on reaching out to more and more students and expanding the partnership work within the Tower Hamlets Community.
Ruth Pirrett
Area Co-ordinator: Tower Hamlets
Bags of TasteRuth first came across Bags of Taste while looking for a volunteer opportunity in Hackney. She was a mentor for the Hackney branch for 9 months before becoming Area Co-ordinator for Tower Hamlets.
She has always loved food and believes cooking nourishing meals is a skill that should be accessible to everyone. Next year she is excited to be starting a masters degree in Nutrition and Public Health.
Talulah Noor
Area Head: Waltham Forest
Bags of TasteAccording to a January 2021 Food Foundation research, one in six households struggled to access food and 47%. of children were living in poverty, in a borough of more than 250,000 inhabitants.
As Area Head for Waltham Forest, Talulah brings her experience of working in community education projects to Bags of Taste to help support residents facing these challenges.
Fatima Ibrahim
Area Head: Sutton and Wandsworth
Bags of TasteFatima started off as a mentor with Bags of Taste before she became Area Head. She has a background and interest in public health nutrition and marketing, and believes in communicating information better to the public to promote health and well-being by understanding the factors that contribute to food poverty.
She enjoys cooking many cuisines and experimenting with ingredients, and is highly motivated by helping people reach their full potential, which makes this role a perfect fit for her.
Our Directors
Tony Curzon Price
Chair of the Board
Bags of TasteTony has been an economist in public policy for over 10 years, including stints at Number 10, the Cabinet Office, BEIS and the CMA. Before that, he founded and grew a tech start-up and was editor-in-chief and CEO at openDemocracy. He now acts in a number of public and private sector advisory roles.
Julian Asher
Board Member
Bags of TasteJulian is an IT professional who has vast experience of working at a very high level. He led the Digital Design Team at Surrey County Council for 2 years and was Head of Digital Transformation at The University of Sussex. Among other roles he has worked with startups and recently managed a very contemporary Web3 project. He also is passionate about climate change and runs Immersive events focusing on positive action and change.
He has also been recently volunteering for Bags of Taste in Hastings by helping out with bag deliveries.
Dr Jenny Blythe
Board Member
Bags of TasteJenny lives and works as a GP in East London. She first became aware of Bags of Taste through teaching at Barts and The London, where she wanted her students to understand some of the issues that impact the local community.
She and Alicia organised sessions for students to gain experience of the work of Bags of Taste and an understanding of health inequalities.
With an academic interest in health inequalities and cross-sector working, Jenny is now studying for a PhD in public health at the London School of Hygiene alongside her GP work, and intends to bring her medical and educational experience to the Bags of Taste board.
Babs Fry
Executive Board Member
Bags of TasteBabs was a participant on the pilot course of Bags of Taste and has been involved ever since as a volunteer then staff member. She brings to the board a deep understanding of our cohorts and ensures that their views and priorities remain our focus
Nicholas Towers
Board Member
Bags of TasteNicholas is a barrister specialising in complex commercial and property disputes. In his work for local authorities and registered social housing providers he has seen the problems faced by the people we support, and understands how annual household savings made by Bags of Taste students impact both landlords and tenants by helping reduce rent arrears and helping those in food poverty avoid homelessness.
He also recognises how cooking together is an invaluable opportunity for social interaction and community-building as many people in social housing are often isolated.
Alicia Weston
Executive Board Member, CEO
Bags of TasteAs the founder and CEO of Bags of Taste Alicia is able to draw on the broad and specialist skills on the board to inform strategy and develop the organisation.
Advising Bags of Taste
Kate Godden
Adviser, Nutrition Programming
Bags of TasteKate Godden is a Principal Nutrition Adviser with over 25 years’ experience at all levels in the nutrition sector in both consultancy and academia, covering the major areas of planning and programming. She has extensive experience in international development and humanitarian contexts in over 20 countries.
Kate also brings Bags of Taste 15 years of evaluation experience, 10+ years academic lecturing in Public Health Nutrition at MSc level and has been registered with the Association for Nutrition since 1999. She lectures primarily on nutrition programme planning and food security and is also a qualified dietitian.