Sustain member Food Matters has won funding for a pilot project in Wandsworth Prison that aims to improve prison meals and help prisoners to make food choices that can boost their health and wellbeing.
Food Matters, the Brighton-based community food group, has been awarded funding by the Ministry of Justice to pilot the Food Matters Inside & Out project at Wandsworth Reform Prison.
Providing three balanced meals on £2.02 per person per day is challenging, and although catering managers cope admirably, feedback from prisoners about prison food is often negative. There tends to be an assumption that it is not possible to have a balanced diet in prison, and feelings of lack of control and gaps in knowledge around healthy eating are commonplace. Yes it is well known that healthy diets can help prisoners regain physical and mental strength.
The Food Matters Inside & Out Project will run at Wandsworth Reform Prison during 2017. It will hold workshops for prisoners, train 'food champions' to act as peer mentors, hold staff training sessions and provide consultancy to caterers to improve the composition and variety of prison food. The aim is to increase awareness of the importance of food as an essential element of any rehabilitation programme. The project will be evaluated by the University of Surrey.
For more information, contact Victoria@foodmatters.org, or visit the Food Matters website here.
Sustain campaigns for a greener, healthier and fairer food system. Find out more about our work here.
Published Friday 10 February 2017
Sustain: Sustain The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.
