Nobody Should Go Hungry in the UK

This summer, our Community Cookery School teams will continue to distribute meals to those most in need of support and provide activities for families living in food poverty. These will include centrally run events, such as our Summer Holiday Cookalong Club, and the wider distribution of resources to our 150+ VCSE partners via an upgrade to our Cooking & Nutrition Portal.

Choose from our range of crowdfunding rewards that enable you to pledge directly to our Community Meal Drives, fund Cookalong Club ingredient costs or support the wider work of our non-profit organisation by selecting one of our fundraising gifts that give twice!

Fighting Food Poverty since 2014

Bounceback Food CIC is a social enterprise fighting food poverty on multiple fronts. Our Community Cookery School teams teach people how to cook, run food bank drives at market events, help people get jobs in the food sector and coordinate community meal drives that provide emergency meals for our beneficiaries.

Our mission to fight food poverty has become even more urgent in light of the Cost of Living crisis, with food insecurity levels and food bank usage soaring. Here are just a few of the reasons why food poverty continues to matter in the UK:

• Since 2018, there has been a 49% increase in the number of children who are dependent on food banks in the UK. (Source: Environmental Audit Committee’s Hunger, Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in the UK Report)
• 3% of families in the UK - at least 2.1 million people - used a food bank in the year to March 2022. (Source: The Trussell Trust)
• Almost 90% of independent food banks reported increased demand in December 2022 and January 2023 compared with a year earlier. (Source: The Independent Food Aid Network - Ifan)
• Between April and September 2022 The Trussell Trust distributed 1.3m emergency food parcels – a third more than the same period in 2021 and over 50% more than pre-pandemic. (Source: The Trussell Trust)

Our Social Impact

Since 2014 we have taught 5,000+ people how to cook, including stroke survivors, young carers, food bank beneficiaries and elderly people living in sheltered accommodation. We have also secured 15,000+ donations to food banks and generated over 150,000 meals for people in need via our catering, community meal drives and cookery workshops.

Prior to the pandemic our outreach work was mainly delivered in the North West, Wales and Cheshire but given the increasing scale of food poverty and the Cost of Living crisis, we've since been focused on building an organisation capable of helping people across the country.

Expanding Nationwide

By November 2024 Bounceback Food CIC will have 20 teams operating in the UK’s largest towns and cities in the UK and be supporting people living in food poverty by:

• Ensuring their nearest foodbank is stocked with good quality items of food & hygiene products.
• Providing them with the opportunity to learn how to cook for free and supporting them with career progression in the food industry.
• Providing free hot nutritious meals from/via permanent Community Meal Drive stalls.
• Enabling them to learn about cooking, budgeting, nutrition, meal planning, reducing food waste, gain accredited skills and book on to cooking classes with the provision of free access to our Cooking & Nutrition Portal.

Our central team, freelancers and volunteers are all now focussed on achieving these goals. The formation of teams in Manchester, London & the South East, the North East, Bradford & Birmingham has started this regional to national transition.

We are always looking for volunteers to support the development of our organisation too and so if you'd like to support us in that way keep an eye on our social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn) or sign up to our mailing list to stay updated.

What Will the Money be Used For?

Target 1: Meal Drives, Summer Holiday Cookalong Club & Resource Distribution

Our first target of £20,000 will raise the funds required to:

• Deliver 8 Summer Holiday Cookalong Club workshops inclusive of supporting participants with ingredients & utensil costs where required.
• Prep, cook and distribute a further 2,500 hot nutritious meals to vulnerable people during the summer holidays. These will be fulfilled by our Community Cookery School teams across the UK.
• Update our Cooking & Nutrition Portal so that our VCSE partners can access centrally produced resources and activities to lead Bounceback created activities on a local level.

Make an Impact this Summer

Choose from our range of crowdfunding rewards that enable you to pledge directly to our Community Meal Drives, fund Cookalong Club ingredient costs or support the wider work of our non-profit organisation by selecting one of our fundraising gifts that give twice!

Our exciting range of fundraising gifts, also sold via our online shop and at market events, are helping us to counter the financial challenges created by the pandemic and build a strong nationwide non-profit organisation capable of meeting the increased demand for our services.

With your support we will be able to tackle holiday hunger on a much bigger scale across the UK this summer.