Partnering with Harvest & Bidfood to provide 1,200 Cooking at Home boxes to families this Christmas
We’ve provided a total of 202,496 meals, since Summer 2020. As a charity, we exist to make a tangible nutritional difference in people’s lives, doing this through serving School Food Plan and Food for Life compliant meals, in over 40 Southampton schools. We currently deliver more than 8,700 hot lunches to children every single day, during term time.
Our Cooking at Home Project
We advocate for access to good food and are acutely aware of the challenges many children face in the school holidays, where the risk of food poverty significantly increases. As a result, we work hard to support the increasing need for holiday provision for schools in Southampton.
In 2020, we launched our Cooking at Home project to support and inspire families at risk of food insecurity to cook healthy, low cost and enjoyable meals at home. Through the Cooking at Home programme, we provide recipe-led grocery boxes to vulnerable families in time for the school holidays. Since the Summer of 2020, we’ve distributed over 14,300 Cooking at Home boxes to Southampton families.
Although the programme has been a success, earlier this year the funding, traditionally from Southampton City Council, stopped. City Catering Southampton were forced to shelve the project and it was a huge disappointment to our charity.
Not wanting to let down Southampton families this Christmas, we spoke to our key suppliers Harvest Fine Foods Ltd and Bidfood, to ask them if they would consider working alongside our charity to co-fund the Cooking at Home boxes, for a Christmas distribution – they both agreed instantly! Gary McMahon, our CEO was delighted by their responses and comments below:
“I’m blown away by two things both related to the speed of responses. Our suppliers have amazed me by the speed and sincere enthusiasm at which they said YES to the idea. And I’m seriously shocked and concerned at the speed with which the food parcels were allocated – indicating to me a HUGE unmet need for support by our most vulnerable families.”
We asked our schools to nominate vulnerable families and the allocation of 1,200 boxes were snapped up within 30 hours of the announcement.
Gary, our CEO, and Laura SuanezAisa, our Food Development Project Coordinator, have been on ITV Meridian News - they’re both very passionate about this amazing initiative. Laura lovingly creates all of our Cooking at Home recipes and manages the programme.
Gary has also been on Wave 105, discussing our funding difficulties and explaining what the Cooking at Home project is all about to viewers and listeners, across Hampshire. Click on the audio below to hear the recording:
The Cooking at Home boxes are due to be delivered the week commencing 11th December to school sites by our suppliers and partners, Harvest Fine Foods, ready for onward distribution and collection. The boxes will contain all the ingredients to make four simple, tasty, easy-to-cook, energy-efficient recipes. One Pot Veggie and Cheesy pasta, One Pot Tomato, Chickpea & Orzo, Pan-fried Brie, Tomato and Onion Toasties and Bean and Veggie Goulash Style Soup.
The Cooking at Home recipes are packed with nutritious ingredients and can easily be adapted to suit each family. We have a range of delicious recipes on our website and cook-along videos on our YouTube channel for anyone to access.
We’ve already received some lovely feedback from Katherine, at The Holy Family Partnership. It's heartwarming to read - we're incredibly proud of the project and the benefits it brings to vulnerable families.
“Our Holy Family Partnership of Schools is committed to and passionate about supporting our most vulnerable families throughout the year. Whether this be food boxes/parcels, utility costs, clothing and uniform, bedding and essential furniture to name but a few things.
We feel the City Catering ‘Cooking at Home’ food boxes initiative is absolutely incredible and has greatly benefited our most vulnerable families. The mixture of fresh and non-perishable food that is provided is amazing alongside the ‘easy to use recipe sheets’ that support families to ‘cook on a budget’ and provide ‘healthy and hearty dishes’ for the whole family.
We really do hope that this initiative can continue in Southampton as it is very much needed.
Thank you to the team at City Catering as well as all the local businesses for your continued support and sponsorship.”