Using data-driven solutions to enable consumers in hard-to-reach communities to access and afford nutritious food and eat with dignity
The FoodSEqual-Essentials project will evidence the effectiveness of the ‘Essentials for Everyone’ (E4E) intervention. E4E is designed to enable residents from disadvantaged communities to access and afford basic food and care products using a simple, dignified digital interface.
Based on a successful intervention
E4E removes the stigma of having to hand over vouchers or separately identify items in the basket which are eligible for schemes such as Healthy Start. The intervention builds on the work begun by FoodSEqual-Health, a daughter project of FoodSEqual. This research demonstrated that when residents had physical and economic access to fruit and vegetables, they increased consumption of these nutritious foods by more than a portion per day. A rise in fruit and vegetable consumption was evidenced alongside improved health and wellbeing.
Benefits for local consumers and retailers
E4E will also focus on the accessibility of fruit and vegetables, using digital coupons to provide residents with a retailer-agnostic choice of where and when they obtain these foods. The project will develop healthy neighbourhoods by enabling residents to access fruit and vegetables locally at food pantries, small shops and cooperatives in the same area. This will support the shops and pantries to use their collective buying power to buy good quality produce at affordable prices, so that locally spent money benefits local people.
The initiative will make it easy and dignified for residents to access wraparound health and social care services through family hubs in the same neighbourhoods. Researchers will work with residents to co-develop the food-focused activities that they feel will most effectively deliver the additional support they desire.
A participatory research approach
The research will test the acceptability, uptake and impact of E4E in disadvantaged communities using participatory methods developed in the FoodSEqual project.
This inclusive approach includes:
- evaluating the experiences of retailers and pantries in adopting the E4E platform
- reflecting the aspirations of residents to ensure that desired products are stocked
- developing briefing notes for local authorities and public health teams to summarise the impact of the intervention on residents’ diet, health and wellbeing, and the commercial vitality of local shops.