£4.8 million UK-wide community food project to tackle food insecurity
Extended Table is an innovative new project that will bring people together through food, tackle loneliness and strengthen communities across the UK. With 9 million people across the UK already facing food insecurity, and almost half of UK adults’ meals being eaten alone, the Extended Table project will provide welcoming spaces for community connection around food.
Thanks to National Lottery players, the Extended Table project has received £4.8 million over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK.
The award is one of the largest grants secured in Northern Ireland through The National Lottery Community Fund’s UK Fund, which supports projects that help change how systems work and create lasting benefits for communities across the UK.
Launched today in Belfast and delivered in partnership with Real Farming Trust, the NOW Group, Cyrenians, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, OrganicLea and the Hornbeam Centre, the Extended Table project will support people to connect around food and create positive change in their communities.
Extended Table aims to harness the power of food to create welcoming, inclusive spaces where people can build relationships, develop confidence and find a stronger sense of belonging.
Extended Table has been developed in response to growing concerns around loneliness, isolation, and poor wellbeing, particularly among marginalised groups. Recent research by the Food Foundation highlights an estimated 7.2 million adults and 2.7 million children across the UK are living in food insecure households, while people with a mental health condition are found to be more than twice as likely to experience food insecurity than those without a mental health condition.
Research from the University of Oxford has shown that the more often people eat with others, the happier they are likely to be in their lives. Extended Table will use food as a vehicle for connection, recognising that good food, strong relationships and positive wellbeing are closely linked.
The partnership brings together organisations working across food justice, community development, homelessness, sustainability, learning disability and neurodiversity support. Together, they will work with communities across the UK, supporting a diverse range of participants including people experiencing poverty, people with learning disabilities, autistic and neurodivergent people, and asylum seekers and migrants.
Building on learning from the partnership’s previous Ready, Healthy, Eat programme, Extended Table recognises that people who initially seek food support often go on to value the friendships, confidence and social connections they gain just as much as the practical support itself.
Through community meals, food pantries, cooking classes, baking sessions, therapeutic gardening and food systems courses, the project will create opportunities for people from different backgrounds to come together, build relationships and discover what they have in common.
Alongside practical food-based activities, participants will have opportunities to develop leadership, volunteering and advocacy skills, helping ensure that the voices of people who are often overlooked help shape the services and systems that affect their lives.
A key ambition of the project is to move beyond traditional responses to food poverty by demonstrating how food can be used as a catalyst for stronger, healthier and more resilient communities. The partnership will share learning from the programme across sectors and national networks, helping to influence service design and encourage approaches that focus not only on providing support, but also on building connection, confidence and community resilience.
Wendy McGhee, Skills Development Manager at NOW Group, said:
“As a Northern Ireland-led project, Extended Table is a powerful example of how our region can lead meaningful conversations about inclusion, belonging, and opportunity. What is most exciting is seeing young people from different backgrounds and with diverse learning needs come together, develop confidence in their own abilities, and play an active role in creating a more connected and inclusive future.”
Kate Beggs, Northern Ireland Director at The National Lottery Community Fund, said:
“Food has a unique ability to bring people together, break down barriers and create a sense of belonging. Extended Table uses that simple idea as a starting point for something much bigger: helping communities become more connected, ensuring marginalised voices are heard, and influencing how support services respond to people’s real needs. We’re proud to support this innovative partnership as it works to create more inclusive, resilient communities and drive lasting change at both a local and national level.”
The Extended Table launch event, held 7th September 2026 in NOW Group’s Belfast headquarters, included a Q&A with NOW Group’s first cohort of Extended Table ambassadors who have been supported into public speaking and advocating for themselves and their communities.
Carson, an ambassador who participated in school leavers’ sessions on advocacy, mental health, transitions and future planning, said:
“The Extended Table Programme helped me grow as a person and made me feel more confident especially around next steps after leaving school”.
After receiving support and advice in these sessions, Carson is continuing on to join NOW Group’s Skills for Life & Work programme.
About Extended Table
Thanks to National Lottery players, Extended Table has received £4.8 million over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The funding will be used to bring people together, tackle isolation and boost confidence through inclusive food projects, from growing food and cooking to sharing healthy meals. Extended Table is led by NOW Group in partnership with Real Farming Trust, Cyrenians, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, OrganicLea and Hornbeam. The project builds on the success of the Ready, Healthy, Eat programme and aims to create socially connected communities where people feel welcome, supported and empowered to influence change.
Find out further information:
Visit the Extended Table webpage: https://realfarming.org/programmes/food-justice/ or reach out the the project’s press contact Caz Hansen, Food Justice Communications Coordinator at caz.hansen@realfarming.org
About The National Lottery Community Fund
We are the largest non-statutory community funder in the UK – community is at the heart of our purpose, vision and name.
We support activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable and that will strengthen society and improve lives across the UK.
We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with Government to distribute vital grants and funding from key Government programmes and initiatives.
As well as responding to what communities tell us is important to them, our funding is focused on four key missions, supporting communities to:
- 1. Come together
- 2. Be environmentally sustainable
- 3. Help children and young people thrive
- 4. Enable people to live healthier lives.
Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, we distribute around £500 million a year through 10,000+ grants and plan to invest over £4bn of funding into communities by 2030. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £49 billion has been raised and more than 670,000 individual grants have been made across the UK - the equivalent of around 240 National Lottery grants in every UK postcode district.
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Report sources:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-03-16-social-eating-connects-communities