Over the past few years, our Community Investment Team have partnered with Food Works, the organisation whose mission it is to fight food waste and create a fair and sustainable food system in Sheffield.
One of their main operating areas is our key neighbourhood of Richmond Park, Handsworth. As regular recipients of our funding, with our Community Investment’s Neighbourhood Initiatives budget, Food Works provide the local community with a range of food support and healthy eating initiatives. Back in the pandemic years, we funded the organisation to deliver free meals straight to the doors of identified vulnerable residents. Since then, we’ve supported their school holiday free meal provision for children, which many families recently depended on over the past few weeks of summer.
How does Food Works operate?
Ingredients are sourced through surplus food from supermarkets, as well as local produce grown in the FoodWorks farm. These are then brough to their warehouse, where they are used to batch-cook healthy, nutritious and balanced meals, called ‘JustMeals’. These are then sold for a minimum contribution of £1.50 in their cafes all year round.
This offer certainly goes a long way. In a cost-of-living crisis, prioritising a regular hot, healthy meal and a fruit and veg-rich diet can be difficult for many, and the pressure is particularly felt by families – especially during school holidays.
To alleviate this, throughout each school holiday, FoodWorks offers struggling families in Sheffield two hot meals for every school-aged child (from Reception to Year 11), seven days a week, for completely free.
For many families, who often have to choose between the children or the parents being able to eat, this regular provision of a fresh, healthy meal is invaluable. And whilst the meals may not always be suitable for younger children, these meals are still allocated to them for their parents to enjoy, thereby opening their budget to cook their own child-friendly meals.
As Jamie Lamb, Senior Hub Manager for FoodWorks Handsworth, could vouch, parents really appreciate the difference this makes, often sharing with staff and volunteers how difficult providing these meals for their families would otherwise be.
On our partnership and funding, Jamie commented:
The Free School JustMeals initiative at Food Works supported by Great Places has made a meaningful difference to our customers by easing pressure on household budgets and helping families access nutritious, reliable meals. Customers have told us that the support provides reassurance during challenging times, reduces anxiety around food costs, and allows limited income to stretch further toward essentials such as housing, energy, and transport. Beyond providing meals, the initiative promotes dignity, wellbeing, and a stronger sense of community, ensuring children and families feel supported when they need it most.”
We’re extremely proud to be able to fund Food Works and the amazing work that they do. What makes this even more valuable is how Richmond Park residents, many of them our customers, make use of this, with 1,037 of the 2,331 free meals provided by Food Works between April 2025 and May 2026 being delivered to those in Handsworth, where Richmond Park is situated. Our Community and Partnerships Manager, Felix, commented:
Recognising the importance of healthy, affordable food, we have developed a strong history of working with Foods Works to deliver a number of community benefiting projects. We are proud to support their free summer meal programme which provides a valuable resource to our residents and look forward to our future work together which includes a growing group with the pupils of Athelstan Primary School and a proposed wider growing project in the Richmond Park area.”
