Sainsbury’s has today announced an investment of over £1.5 million to help put nutritious food on the table for children and families across the UK. Coinciding with the start of the school year, the funding will support a range of initiatives designed to improve access to healthy food both in and outside the classroom.
Through its partnership with Comic Relief, two charities tackling food insecurity – Magic Breakfast and Rethink Food – will each receive £500,000 from Sainsbury’s to expand their reach, strengthen their impact and help develop long-term solutions to tackling the barriers some families face with accessing good, nutritious food.
Magic Breakfast will use this investment to provide free, nutritious breakfasts to school children, helping them start the day with the energy and stability needed to learn and thrive. Alongside direct food provision, the funding will support schools to deliver breakfast clubs in a way that meet the needs of their pupils, increasing uptake and helping more children access the wider benefits, supporting learning, wellbeing and long-term outcomes. The funding will reach children most at risk of hunger across both primary and secondary schools.
Rethink Food will use Sainsbury’s £500,000 to grow its National School Pantry Network, helping more schools in areas of high deprivation provide free access to nutritious food to take home and wider support for families. With thousands of schools already providing informal food support to families, it aims to create a sustainable model that helps schools respond to rising needs without placing additional pressure on those working there.
The retailer has also increased its support for the Department for Education’s free Breakfast Clubs programme so that the 1,400 new schools enrolled onto the programme are eligible to receive a £200 Sainsbury’s gift card to support the scheme. This £280,000 investment brings Sainsbury’s total investment in the programme to more than half a million pounds and means over 2,700 schools will have been supported since launch.
To further support children throughout the school day, Sainsbury’s has allocated £300,000 from its ‘Good food for all of us’ community grants programme with Neighbourly to upgrade school kitchens in areas of high deprivation across the UK. Examples could include equipment upgrades such as ovens, fridges and storage, helping to increase the quality, output and efficiency of the kitchens, strengthening programmes like Breakfast Clubs and Free School Meals provision.
Through these investments, more children and their families will be able to access the nutritious food they need throughout the day, improving long-term health and development opportunities.
Ruth Cranston, director of sustainability at Sainsbury’s, said: “Every child should be able to enjoy nutritious food both throughout the school day and when they get home, but for many families this can be a challenge.
“Through our partnerships with Comic Relief and the local charities it supports, the Department for Education, and Neighbourly, we’re helping schools provide more support today while also tackling the longer-term barriers that make it hard for some families to access nutritious food.”
Alongside support for these critical community initiatives, this September Sainsbury’s is extending its commitment to providing good food for everyone, every mealtime, by investing to keep prices low and to deliver great value, nutritious food for its customers.
