Food Matters

Food Matters’ aim is to create communities where healthy, sustainable, fair food is available to everyone. In particular, it runs projects that address food, well-being and mental health with disadvantaged groups including prisoners and people with previous convictions in the community, young people leaving care, people with addictions to substances, homeless people, parents of children at risk, people with mental health issues.

A major focus of Food Matters’ work is within the field of criminal justice, through the Food Matters Inside & Out programme. Food Matters takes a whole systems approach to changing food within prisons, so people in prison can make healthier choices. It works directly with prisoners, running face-to-face courses, in-cell learning and training peer supporters. Food Matters publishes a monthly health and wellbeing newsletter Her Wellbeing, which goes to all women serving custodial sentences in England (around 3,000) and is piloting His Wellbeing in a select number of men’s prisons.