OUR CURRENT GRANTS
Bite Back 2030 - £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
Bite Back empowers young people to transform school food systems through youth-led campaigns. This funding will support their Youth Board and school programmes, training 80 teen advocates to influence policies from canteens to government. Their proven approach has already secured free school meal extensions and junk food ad bans.
By amplifying student voices and conducting research, they'll push for healthier options, longer lunch breaks, and stricter food standards enforcement in secondary schools - tackling the crisis where 66% of teens' calories come from ultra-processed foods.
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Chefs in Schools - £150,000 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
​Chefs in Schools transforms secondary school food culture through chef training, kitchen overhauls and student engagement. Funding will expand their proven primary school model to tackle unhealthy "grab and go" culture in secondaries. Programmes include 10-week chef training, menu redesigns, and "Snack Takeovers" promoting nutritious alternatives. Their hands-on approach demonstrates how budget-friendly, scratch-cooked meals can become the popular choice, while building evidence to influence national school food policy.
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CRuNCH - £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
CRuNCH's Cook5 programme teaches 11-18 year olds to cook five healthy meals through after-school sessions. This funding scales delivery from 10 to 130 schools, focusing on disadvantaged areas. Students learn practical skills like knife techniques and nutrition basics, with take-home recipes to share with families. The programme addresses the cooking skills gap and reduces reliance on ultra-processed foods, supported by University of Bristol evaluation.
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The Food Foundation – £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
The Food Foundation works to ensure every child has access to nutritious school meals, combining robust research with youth voices to drive improvements in food policy and practice.
Our funding supports their national campaigns to influence school food standards and embed nutrition equity in policymaking.
This grant builds on their track record of impactful advocacy and aligns with our mission to improve child health and reduce inequalities.​​​
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Health Equalities Group (Food Active) - £30,000 for 1 year - Awarded July 2025
This grant will pilot the Senior School’s Pledge, adapting HEG’s successful primary school model for secondary settings. The project will co-design a framework to promote healthy eating and physical activity in three schools across Cheshire and Merseyside.
By engaging school leaders and students, HEG aims to tackle adolescent health inequalities and create sustainable, whole-school change.
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ProVeg UK - £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
ProVeg’s School Plates programme works with caterers to increase plant-based and plant-rich options in secondary schools. Funding will support chef training, student taste-testing, and menu redesign to make healthy, sustainable meals appealing to teens.
By blending global street-food inspiration with nutrition science, ProVeg aims to shift eating habits and reduce ultra-processed food consumption.
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Real Food Rebellion - £125,682 over 3 years - Awarded July 2025
An initiative by Public Health Collaboration, Real Food Rebellion provides PSHE-aligned lessons to help students understand and resist unhealthy food marketing. The grant will finalise resources, roll out the programme to 40 schools, and evaluate its impact on dietary choices.
By embedding food literacy in the curriculum, the project empowers teens to make healthier lifelong decisions.
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School Food Matters – £150,000 over 3 years - Awarded March 2025
School Food Matters is adapting its successful Nourish programme for 20 London secondary schools, tackling challenges like contract catering and unequal meal access. Working with the University of Birmingham, they'll test a whole-school model focusing on policy changes, student engagement, and improved dining environments. The three-year project will compare outcomes in areas with different free school meal policies, building evidence for universal provision. Activities include menu reviews, staff training, and student workshops, with rigorous evaluation tracking sustained improvements. Findings will inform national rollout, supported by parallel funding for schools outside London. This grant covers delivery costs while strengthening advocacy for healthier, more equitable school food.
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First Steps Nutrition Trust – £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded March 2024
​First Steps Nutrition Trust was founded in 2011 in response to concerns around a pervasive shortage of evidence-based, independent information and resources on eating well in pregnancy and early years. ​​First Steps plays a unique role in the UK early years food/nutrition landscape, working closely with many of NWF's other grant holders to support good nutrition from conception to age five. This grant supports their practical and policy work.
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Nutritank - £155,000 over 3 years - Awarded April 2023
Since 2019, AIM and NWF have supported Nutritank, a CIC founded by two medical students to tackle the gap in nutrition and lifestyle medicine education. Today Nutritank provides a range of accessible & free resources for medics and other health professionals, on various topics around nutrition and lifestyle medicine, including exercise, sleep and mental wellbeing. They also operate at a grassroots level in over 65% of medical schools in the UK.
The NWF is supporting Nutritank’s core costs, which is helping them to scale their work.
Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) - £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded April 2023
AIM started funding iHV’s work back in 2018, recognising the importance of their Healthy Weight, Healthy Nutrition training programme - an evidence-based, holistic approach to upskill health practitioners to be confident in having conversations with families around healthy nutrition (from the pre-conception period onwards), physical activity and oral health – all of which are significant contributors to healthy weight.
This latest grant is helping to build on the success of their programme, by developing and embedding the principles of effective practice, and recruiting new Champions and Ambassadors.
Culinary Medicine UK - £120,000 over 3 years - Awarded April 2023
Culinary Medicine UK CIC is a non-profit organisation aiming to empower health professionals to talk confidently about food in medicine, by combining nutrition science with hands on cooking and culinary skills. Their aim is to promote “sustainable, affordable, equitable and healthy food for all” and their flagship online course has been accessed by thousands of health professionals.
This latest core funding grant is the fourth awarded by AIM/NWF, and it will help support the further development of CMUK’s programmes.
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Sustain (Children’s Food Campaign) - £95,000 over 3 years - Awarded February 2023
Sustain is an alliance of organisations and communities working together for better food, farming, and fishing. They advocate for food and agriculture policies and practices that have the health and welfare of people and animals at their centre.
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Since 2021 AIM/NWF has been supporting Sustain's Children’s Food Campaign for universal healthy free school meal provision in England. Working closely with partners (#Feedthe Future campaign, Soil Association), and using strong evidence, the government has been reluctant to change policy in this area so far.
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