Groundwork West Midlands partners with food banks in Coventry

Over the past few weeks the Cook Together Eat Together team in Coventry have been working on an exciting partnership with Coventry City Council and Feeding Coventry to support families to cook simple, low cost meals.

The Groundwork team have:

• Created ‘5 meals for £15’ leaflets, which include a shopping list of what people can buy and make with their £15 free school meal voucher.
• Developed bespoke recipes using ingredients which Food Banks have plentiful stocks of, for example oats and chickpeas.
• Created recipes that can be made into low cost ‘Meal Bags’ for Coventrys Food banks and Social supermarkets to assemble and distribute.
• Created videos of a Groundwork team member making ‘Meal Bag’ recipes so that people can see a demonstration of how to cook the meal.
• Created simple fact sheets about shopping on a budget, eating healthily, snack swaps and staying well to help families get the most out of their money during this time.

Healthy Lifestyle Manager Jo Elward states that “during this time a lot of people have had to rely on food parcels due to socially isolating and financial difficulties. The practical information that we have provided has enable recipients to be able to cook healthy, filling and affordable meals, getting the best value out of the parcels and money they have.”

James Hoare from the Coventry team says

“Its been great seeing and hearing the impact that our recipes, videos and factsheets have had on families. People who have told us they didn’t cook previously have been using their ‘Meal Bags’ to made great tasting food from scratch”.

All the information can be found on the Cook Together Eat Together Facebook Page or The Partnership for Coventry Webpage.