Are you looking for workshops and courses for young people that boost their confidence, wellbeing, and life skills through food?

Do you want to help the young people you work with build skills, confidence, and leadership around food?

Do you want young people to have a stronger voice in local and national food systems?

At Food Matters, we’ve spent years working directly with young people experiencing marginalisation.

We deliver food and wellbeing courses that use food as way to build their confidence; support their wellbeing; build social connections; and find practicable ways of looking after their physical and mental health, whatever their circumstances.

We also love bring our participatory approach to schools and organisational settings, really listening to what young people think and care about on issues related to food. We find age-appropriate ways to creatively engage with young people, helping you evaluate food projects that impact young peoples’ lives.

10+

Years’ of experience bringing cutting-edge nutritional research to young people

70

Youth organisations supported, working with over 500 young people

What we Offer

We can create bespoke workshops and courses co-designed with young people in your organisation. Some of the services we can offer are:

Engaging Cookery & Wellbeing Sessions

Our hands‑on, flexible courses teach affordable meal preparation using simple ingredients and minimal equipment.

Co-creation

We facilitate age-appropriate conversations to include children and young people's voices in food policy and programmes

Confidence and Skills Building

Through focus groups and workshops we listen to young people and give them pathways to getting involved in national campaigning

Engaging Cookery & Wellbeing Sessions

Our hands‑on, flexible courses teach affordable meal preparation using simple ingredients and minimal equipment.

Co-creation

We facilitate age-appropriate conversations to include children and young people's voices in food policy and programmes.

Confidence and Skills Building

Through focus groups and workshops we listen to young people and give them pathways to getting involved in national campaigning

Case Studies

Food Hits Different

Working with a range of local and national charities and schools, we are running an action-based research project, designed to rethink how healthy food is communicated to young people, particularly those facing challenging circumstances such as low income, homelessness, or poor housing. Using practical nutrition and cooking sessions to ground our conversations, we explore what better health messaging for young people could look like.

FAIR Food

We ran an online listening session with young people from across the country to understand what their involvement in national food partnerships could look like, and how to get them more involved. The results of this session fed into plans to create an expert youth panel at national level.

School Food Matters Evaluation

We evaluated School Meals Improvement Campaign led by School Food Matters, centring young people's voices in our assessment of how effectively it improved the nutritional quality, presentation and dining experience of school meals in Richmond upon Thames. This work highlights what made the campaign successful and offers a model that can be replicated to strengthen school food provision elsewhere.

Pupils' Voice

Using a participatory approach, we listened to primary school children about their experiences of the Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) programme, exploring how pupils feel about the food, dining environment and social aspects of lunchtime. The sessions captured what matters most to children about school meals and helped inform understanding of how food provision and mealtime experience affect engagement and wellbeing.

Food Hits Different

Working with a range of local and national charities and schools, we are running an action-based research project, designed to rethink how healthy food is communicated to young people, particularly those facing challenging circumstances such as low income, homelessness, or poor housing. Using practical nutrition and cooking sessions to ground our conversations, we explore what better health messaging for young people could look like.

FAIR Food

We ran an online listening session with young people from across the country to understand what their involvement in national food partnerships could look like, and how to get them more involved. The results of this session fed into plans to create an expert youth panel at national level.

School Food Matters Evaluation

We evaluated School Meals Improvement Campaign led by School Food Matters, centring young people's voices in our assessment of how effectively it improved the nutritional quality, presentation and dining experience of school meals in Richmond upon Thames. This work highlights what made the campaign successful and offers a model that can be replicated to strengthen school food provision elsewhere.

Pupils' Voice

Using a participatory approach, we listened to primary school children about their experiences of the Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) programme, exploring how pupils feel about the food, dining environment and social aspects of lunchtime. The sessions captured what matters most to children about school meals and helped inform understanding of how food provision and mealtime experience affect engagement and wellbeing.

“I am more conscious of the videos I watch and able to identify food and not so good food content.” Food Hits Different participant

Get In Touch

Reach out to the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do, get involved or to collaborate with us on a future project at [email protected]

Get In Touch

Reach out to the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do, get involved or to collaborate with us on a future project.

Contact Us