The impacts of the cost of living crisis have compounded widespread food insecurity in the UK. In 2023 7.2 million people, 11% of people in the UK, were living in households experiencing food insecurity, rising 2.5million compared to 2022, with 2.3 million people living in households that have used a food bank in the last 12 months.
Building on the Company’s historic relationship with fish and its nutritional benefits and commitment to supporting those facing poverty, our food and nutrition portfolio works to ensure that some of the most vulnerable in society have access to healthy, nutritious food.
Spanning both our neighbouring boroughs and beyond the Company’s Charitable Trust funds a range of food banks and community kitchens, from the Bow Foodbank in our neighbouring Tower Hamlets to the nationwide network of FoodCycle who work in schools to run community meals, providing free, nutritious meals to families facing food insecurity
The Company also supports the Beyond Food Foundation‘s work in harnessing the transformative power of the food and hospitality industry to change lives, working with people in precarious positions, from those facing homelessness to those leaving prison, to gain skills and employment from the catering industry.
The Hackney School of Food is a purpose-built food education hub at Mandeville Primary School in East London. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of children, their families, and the wider community by teaching them how to grow and cook nutritious food. With the help of FCCT funding, it is providing a free weekly after-school club for children from low-income backgrounds and/or with poor dietary health. Over three years, they will reach 225 children.
An FCCT grant is funding the Alexandra Rose Charity to provide Rose Vouchers for low-income families with young children which can be redeemed for fresh fruit and vegetables at a local market. Families are referred to the scheme by local children’s centres and other community organisations. The project was developed to address health inequalities, an example of which is the startling statistic that children living in the most deprived areas are twice as likely to be obese as those in the least deprived. The charity estimates that over 2,300 families living in these boroughs will be able to provide their children with a more nutritious start in life over the course of the grant.
Share Community is being supported to provide a catering course and a hospitality course for adults with learning disabilities and autism to support them to live happier, healthier and more independent lives. The courses focus on developing students’ catering, teamwork and customer service skills, with the aim of expanding their practical cooking skills, but also transferrable skills to help them into work or volunteering. Programmes such as this are vital as over three quarters of adults with a learning disability say that they would like a job, but only a quarter have one. Since taking part in the programmes, several Share Community students have secured work experience and paid employment; two in particular are delighted to have been selected to work at the Wimbledon tennis championships in the summer of 2025.
© The Fishmongers’ Company 2025
