Barwood Capital is Supporting Food4Heroes to Tackle Food Poverty

An Initiative to Provide Meals For Families in Food Poverty

Barwood Capital has been very proud to support Food4Heroes as part of its  initiative to provide home cooked meals for families in need as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Food4Heroes was born out of panic buying during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, which left many key workers unable to purchase even basic foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables.  The not-for-profit organisation brought together furloughed staff from caterers, pubs and restaurants to cook nutritious meals for NHS staff. The scheme was entirely supported by public donations. 

As the impact of the pandemic took hold, the scale of those people impacted became clear with households put under extreme pressure due to job losses and decreased income, meaning families were struggling to afford to provide well-balanced and nutritious meals.  So Food4Heroes reached out to foodbanks. 

“We were keen to continue to do our bit to alleviate the pressure on the NHS, so it felt like a natural progression to start working with foodbanks. Our aim is to support the nutritional needs of foodbank users whilst also alleviating some of the stress associated with cooking using only packets and tins. In the long term we hope to expand our work to include advice and education around healthy eating. 

We’re still working with pubs, restaurants and caterers but the meals are now distributed directly to foodbanks. The freshly cooked, nutritious meals supplement the non-perishable goods in food packages; giving service users the opportunity to enjoy a healthy meal that they just need to heat up at home”, says Food4Heroes. 

Barwood Capital was very humbled to receive feedback from a number of families Food4Heroes was able to help in 2020; 

“Thank you for the meals, they were so tasty! I really didn’t think the kids would eat them to be honest cos it’s not something that I would give them but they both scoffed the lot and asked if I could make it for them again! I suppose I had better try and find a recipe for Lasagne now I know they will eat it!” - Young single mum referred for support with her mental health, she has two children aged 3 and 5?

“What a treat! It was so nice to put some fresh food on the table, it feels like we’ve been living on canned and packet food for months, well to be fair we have been since S (Dad) was put on Furlough. I’m not knocking the food parcels that we have had, they have saved us, but these meals were another level tasty!” - Family with four children aged 11, 10, 4 and 1

“The kids loved their dinner tonight, thank you so much it was really nice and not something I would cook usually, we have fallen into the pizza and chips, nuggets and chips trap, now that I know they are willing to try something different I might try them with other stuff” he kids loved their dinner tonight, thank you so much it was really nice and not something I would cook usually, we have fallen into the pizza and chips, nuggets and chips trap, now that I know they are willing to try something different I might try them with other stuff” - Family with 11 year old and 4 year old twins

Food4Heroes is currently working with foodbanks in Northampton, Kettering and Daventry and has ambitions to roll out the initiative nationwide and already more foodbanks have signed up to the scheme. 

If you would like to donate to Food4Heroes you can do so by visiting their website.  Just £2 funds a freshly cooked nutritious meal. 

Caterers, food outlets, delivery companies, electrical goods suppliers or foodbanks around the country can register interest in joining the scheme by getting in touch with the Food4Heroes team.