£15,000 was donated in April 2025 to help FoodCycle make community meals across 90 locations in England and Wales. Thanks to players of The Health Lottery, FoodCycle volunteers cooked and served over 170,000 three course meals for local vulnerable people. The charity has a mission to tackle food poverty and loneliness.
Each project is hyper local, with volunteers running each session. They collect or receive surplus food, create a menu, cook a three course meal and then serve it to their guests. Guests are local vulnerable people who are usually facing difficult and sometimes multiple, challenges. Many guests live alone.
FoodCycle welcomes everyone, no matter their background or circumstance.
All meals are vegetarian and three courses, ensuring everyone gets a healthy meal, with each dish served to the guests in their seat. There are volunteer hosting teams at every location who make everyone feel welcome and create a warm environment which lets conversation and connections flow.
Who did the money help?
Over the last twelve months, volunteers across England and Wales ran 4,416 community meal sessions. At those sessions they cooked and served 172,377 three course meals, with a further 5,272 given out as takeaway at the end of each session. In addition to the meals, food parcels made up of any leftover ingredients or other donated items are handed out to guests to use throughout the week.
By using surplus food, 410,500kg of food was prevented from going to waste, which is approximately 257,344kg of C02e.
Guest data is measured on an annual basis and in 2025, FoodCycle reached 8,100 people, including over 900 children.
Key feedback from participants
The questions FoodCycle ask about the challenges guest face reveal the true impact of their current circumstances and why they come to FoodCycle.
A third struggle to pay their bills and struggle to afford the food they need. 74% worry they will run out of money and 11% have had to borrow money to pay for food. 75% skip meals.
51% live alone and 67% eat some or all meals alone. 74% feel lonely.
After attending a FoodCycle project many people are eating better and more sustainably – 85% tried new foods at FoodCycle, 75% ate more fruit and vegetables, 66% were eating more pulses, 68% had gained knowledge on what foods are healthy for them, 64% said they had changed the way they eat to be more healthy and 87% said they went home well fed after their meal.
79% said they felt happier, 73% said it gave them structure to their week, 84% have made friends, 92% say that eating together is good for their mental health and 73% said FoodCycle helped them to feel less lonely
Gwyn’s Story
Gwyn lives alone and says before he came to FoodCycle he rarely went out and did not have friends. Gwyn, who lives with schizophrenia managed through medication, says the experience of attending FoodCycle community meals has been ‘lifechanging’.
Initially it took him six months to pluck up the courage to come to his first FoodCycle meal. Now he has made it his mission to visit as many FoodCycle meals as he can, after discovering how beneficial it was for his mental and physical health.
Travelling by train and bus he has now visited several projects around the country. He has made many friends and enjoys chatting with FoodCycle volunteers and other guests. His confidence has improved, and he believes his cholesterol levels have reduced through accessing healthier food.
Gwyn said,
“It’s a wonderful thing. It’s been completely life changing for me. I struggle to socialise with people. I didn’t have any friends at all, and now I’ve got loads of friends. If I’m having a bad week, I look forward to FoodCycle. I know that I can talk to other people when I’m there, and they can share experiences and empathise with you, and share some of that load.
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1999. It robs you of your securities, and it changes your life completely. I manage it with tablets, so I am safe. I tell people about it when I come to FoodCycle, and I’ve found that perhaps my illness isn’t as bad as I thought it was, because people are quite receptive to me.”
You can read Gwyn’s full story here – thank you to FoodCyle for sharing it.