Is your local food scene flooded with junk? Bite Back is committed to improving everyone’s access to healthy food.

It should be easy for us to be healthy. But it isn’t. The food system is rigged against us from the start: our world is flooded with junk food, and the billions that the global food giants pump into advertising makes sure it always plays a starring role in children’s minds.

We’re here to change that.

Since 2021, over 500 passionate young people have helped shape a world where we all have the chance to be healthy, no matter where we live. Bite Back is driving grassroots change up and down the country, with young people digging deeper into the challenges that they face accessing healthy and nutritious food — and helping lead social action projects to make a difference in their local area.

Bite Back in Essex

We are excited to be launching a new project in partnership with Essex County Council. In February half-term 2025, we will be hosting a 2-day workshop to explore how the food system works, especially in Essex, and how young people can help make it healthier.

It’s completely free and will be packed full of fun activities and opportunities to develop skills and valuable experiences. We are looking for 30 young people, aged 14-18, to join us for the two days.

The workshops are on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 February 2025. If you are interested, click the button below to find out more and sign up.

Do you work with young people in Essex?

Support us by sharing this opportunity! You can find our recruitment pack for this project here.

What Have We Achieved So Far?

After a nationwide series of launch events in 2021, Bite Back’s Community Food Champions gathered alongside other campaigners in their region for an inspiring call to arms from our incredible Bite Back Youth Board.

Freshly fired up, our community activists came together in workshops to explore the many injustices and limitations of our current food system. A competition to record local food prices on a digital map led to around 2,700 food items being logged from all across the country, revealing striking inequalities in our access to healthy food.

After sharpening their leadership, campaigning and communication skills, our Community Food Champions then pitched their ideas for changemaking social action projects to a panel of the Bite Back team, fellow young activists and local stakeholders — with 17 campaigns winning funding to turn their ideas into reality.

These include campaigns to:

• End junk food marketing in Peterborough. Young activists brought together stakeholders at both County and City Council level – and through a series of successful activities such as an online petition and meeting with council leaders, they won! Peterborough City Council has now introduced a healthier advertising policy that takes junk food out of the spotlight.
• Replace junk food posters on public transport in Leeds. Young activists at Health for All Inspiring Futures have designed alternative posters to help stem the flood of unhealthy food advertising. They are writing to local bus companies and the local authority for support.
• Improve the healthy food options available on match days at Sheffield Wednesday FC, and remove billboard ads for junk food at the stadium. Young activists from Sheffield Wednesday FC Community Programme have launched a survey to gather thoughts from the public, with a prize draw to win a signed shirt.

Bite Back’s Community Food Champions was funded by the #iWill Fund. The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to £66 million joint investment from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities.