Harvest and Bidfood support 1200 families in Southampton

Harvest Fine Foods, Bidfood and City Catering have teamed up to fund and produce Cook at Home Boxes again for Christmas 2023. This means that 1,200 families from Southampton City Council Schools will get boxes of ingredients to produce three hot and nutritious meals during the Christmas holidays.

Harvest Fine Foods have been producing Cook at Home Boxes on behalf of City Catering for some years now. Between Summer 2020 and Spring 2023, Harvest Fine Foods and City Catering distributed over 13,100 of the boxes.

The scheme started during Covid, originally to ensure that children who have free school meals had a fresh food box for the holidays. Over time the food box developed into a recipe box with menu cards and ingredients for families to cook at home.

Steve Whitwam, managing director of Harvest Fine Foods, said: “So many of us take for granted coming home from school or work and having a hot, nutritious meal, but for many children having a hot meal at school is their only opportunity. When the holidays arrive, it can be a struggle for some families to make sure their children are getting a healthy balanced meal.

“When we found out that council funding wasn’t available this year for City Catering’s Cook at Home Boxes we felt compelled to try and do something to support our community. It makes such a huge difference and that’s why Harvest Fine Foods partnered with City Catering and Bidfood to bring this project to life and fund it ourselves while also supplying the labour and logistics to pack and distribute the Cook at Home Boxes to 1200 families across Southampton.”