University nourishes cooking and connections at family food festival

Parents came to Waterside last week to learn with their children about healthy cooking and eating and getting the most from their ‘food dollar’.

The Nourishing Connections Festival was part of a University of Northampton (UON) collaboration with food charities* to promote healthy eating to 50 families who access their support.

The Festival – part of the 50 Families project, tasked with helping them to upskill with food – was held on Thursday 17 April at the Students’ Union’s Engine Shed at Waterside Campus, fully utilising their high spec, gleaming new kitchen equipment.

The families started the day with demonstrations of making quick, nutritious and cost-effective meals – such as meatballs, a simple Bolognese, and tacos – from two culinary experts, UON Head Chef Mike O’Gorman and Will Podbury from local live fire restaurant Ember.

The guests then circled for a series of activities and games to help them better understand nutritional health and, using simulation scenarios, sensible food, drinking, and shopping behaviours.

Academics from the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology and Faculty of Health, Education and Society came together to support the event, including members of the Sports Science Team who were on-hand to provide health checkups, such as blood pressure measuring.

UON’s Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise (KEE) Programme has provided further funding for the Nourishing Connections Festival and digital outreach activities to enhance the project’s visibility and encourage broader participation.

One of the aims of the 50 Families project is to evaluate its impact – led by academics in UON’s Childhood, Youth and Families and Education areas – with a view to rolling out the programme nationally.

John Brownhill is the Founder of Food for Heroes, a charity established during the Covid pandemic after panic buying left key workers unable to purchase basic foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables.

John, pictured in the final photo, was one of the organisers watching the event. He says: “The food we eat and how we acquire it has set the scene of every day since humans first walked upright. But the modern world gives us many new ‘dietary dilemmas,’ it’s not always easy to know what we should put on our plates.

“For those of us with busy lives, homes to run and hungry children to feed, this festival and the project informing it was a very special event. We are so grateful to the University, Students’ Union and their staff for dedicating their time and expertise.”

The year-long pilot project is funded by Food4Heroes and Northamptonshire Community Foundation (NCF).

Dr Emel Thomas and Associate Professor Dr Helen Caldwell are the academics leading on the UON-side of the project. Dr Thomas sums up their thoughts: “Nourishing Connections was a ripe opportunity to explore, in a collaborative and fun way, what good food and a healthy lifestyle can be. Working with three key charities, it was wonderful to see our guests from diverse communities explore what food means to them and what lifestyle changes to take away.

“There are many people and teams to thank for making this event a success – including Home Sense Northampton who generously donated the food hamper that was our main prize – and we look forward to sharing the fruits of this project through our evaluation, set to be published later this year.”

You can follow the progress of 50 Families on the Instagram account managed by UON students (50_families).

*The full list of 50 Families partner organisations is:

• Food 4 Heroes
• Northamptonshire Community Foundation
• Home Start
• Power of the Mind
• The Spring Charity
• University of Northampton. UON’s Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Programme has provided further funding for the Nourishing Connections Festival and digital outreach activities to enhance the project’s visibility and encourage broader participation.