In March 2025, we began a 6 month project piloting our new Prison Food Education Programme at HMP Bristol, a Category B men’s prison. We’re delivering training in the prison kitchen, working with the catering team on new recipes and menus, engaging the prison population through food forums and tastings, and planting food in the prison grounds. We’ve helped set up an in-house bakery, Rise & Prove, teaching prisoners how to bake and getting fresh, homemade baked items onto the menu.

Cooking From My Culture is a cultural cooking programme designed for ethnic minority prisoners. It was delivered at HMP Bristol in May 2023 and at HMP Wealstun in November 2023. The programme is designed to give prisoners the opportunity to share, learn and bond through food that represents their cultural heritage. It also enables them to break down barriers with staff during a heritage potluck lunch at the end of the course.

Food 360 is our holistic food education programme, delivered in a variety of establishments including HMP Stafford, HMP Drake Hall, HMP Downview and HMP Manchester. The aim of Food 360 is to influence, excite and inspire prisoners around food, allowing them to make healthier food choices and equipping them with skills to utilise during their sentence and beyond release. Food 360 takes the form of a practical programme of cooking classes that covers a variety of subjects, cuisines and ideas

We spent 8 months at HMP Woodhill, a Category A prison in Milton Keynes. The project was centred around empowering and upskilling the catering team, educating the prison population around food and promoting health and wellbeing through nutritious, homemade meals. We rolled out over 25 new recipes on the prison menu and reduced the amount of processed food. This led to a 150% rise in food satisfaction rates and staff reporting an increase in skills and job satisfaction.

We delivered a unique professional butchery programme in HMP East Sutton Park, a women’s open prison in Kent and home to the prison system’s only in-house butchery. We taught groups of women the fundamentals of nose-to-tail butchery, using organic meat reared on the prison’s working farm. They produce professional products that are sold in the prison's farm shop and learn all the skills associated with becoming a professional butcher. The meat is also used on prison menus, providing a vital source of local, ethical meat.

We are delivering a 12-month cooking and food programme at HMP Stoke Heath, in collaboration with the NHS. We have established two kitchen gardens where men engage in weekly outdoor food growing workshops, as well as beekeeping. All produce grown is used in weekly cooking classes, where participants learn how to cook and eat well. The programme supports the emotional wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable individuals in the prison, by enabling them to gain a range of skills around cooking, healthy eating, horticulture and the food system.

In Spring 2025, we delivered a project at HMP Send, a women’s prison in Surrey, in collaboration with the University of Surrey’s Doing Porridge study. We hosted a series of lunchtime events, encouraging women to eat together and share exciting, nutritious food in the prison’s dining hall. New recipes were developed and rolled out in collaboration with the catering team, and prisoners took part in our food education classes. The project concluded with a food-themed family day where women were able to cook lunch and enjoy it with their loved ones as part of a special visit in the dining hall.

In 2025, we extended our food education programme to the Mother & Baby unit of HMP Bronzefield, a women’s prison in Surrey. It’s the first time we have expanded our food education work to mums, babies and pregnant women in prison. The programme helps enable them to explore different weaning techniques, learn about the importance of nutrition for children and look after themselves during prenatal and postpartum periods. All recipes are designed to be healthy, family-friendly and simple - the idea being that they can be cooked and shared together.