- As the new term begins, Sainsbury’s makes a series of investments to help more children and families access nutritious food around the school day
- Through its partnership with Comic Relief, £1 million has been invested into school-based charities Magic Breakfast and Rethink Food to provide nutritious breakfasts and pantries
- The retailer has also increased support for the government’s free Breakfast Clubs, with around 1,400 new schools now eligible to receive a £200 Sainsbury’s gift card to support the scheme, an investment of £280,000
- £300,000 has also been allocated to upgrade school kitchens to help support school food offerings, such as breakfast clubs, as part of Sainsbury’s community grants programme
- The investments are part of Sainsbury’s ongoing commitment to make good food easy and accessible for everyone, working to ensure no child or family goes hungry
Thursday 3 September 2026: Sainsbury's has today announced an investment of over £1.5 million to help put nutritious food on the table for children and families across the UK. Coinciding with the start of the school year, the funding will support a range of initiatives designed to improve access to healthy food both in and outside the classroom.
Through its partnership with Comic Relief, two charities tackling food insecurity – Magic Breakfast and Rethink Food – will each receive £500,000 from Sainsbury’s to expand their reach, strengthen their impact and help develop long-term solutions to tackling the barriers some families face with accessing good, nutritious food.
Magic Breakfast will use this investment to provide free, nutritious breakfasts to school children, helping them start the day with the energy and stability needed to learn and thrive. Alongside direct food provision, the funding will support schools to deliver breakfast clubs in a way that meet the needs of their pupils, increasing uptake and helping more children access the wider benefits, supporting learning, wellbeing and long-term outcomes. The funding will reach children most at risk of hunger across both primary and secondary schools.
Rethink Food will use Sainsbury’s £500,000 to grow its National School Pantry Network, helping more schools in areas of high deprivation provide free access to nutritious food to take home and wider support for families. With thousands of schools already providing informal food support to families, it aims to create a sustainable model that helps schools respond to rising needs without placing additional pressure on those working there.
The retailer has also increased its support for the Department for Education’s free Breakfast Clubs programme so that the 1,400 new schools enrolled onto the programme are eligible to receive a £200 Sainsbury's gift card to support the scheme. This £280,000 investment brings Sainsbury’s total investment in the programme to more than half a million pounds and means over 2,700 schools will have been supported since launch.
To further support children throughout the school day, Sainsbury’s has allocated £300,000 from its ‘Good food for all of us’ community grants programme with Neighbourly to upgrade school kitchens in areas of high deprivation across the UK. Examples could include equipment upgrades such as ovens, fridges and storage, helping to increase the quality, output and efficiency of the kitchens, strengthening programmes like Breakfast Clubs and Free School Meals provision.
Through these investments, more children and their families will be able to access the nutritious food they need throughout the day, improving long-term health and development opportunities.
Ruth Cranston, Director of Sustainability at Sainsbury's, said: “Every child should be able to enjoy nutritious food both throughout the school day and when they get home, but for many families this can be a challenge.
“Through our partnerships with Comic Relief and the local charities it supports, the Department for Education, and Neighbourly, we’re helping schools provide more support today while also tackling the longer-term barriers that make it hard for some families to access nutritious food.”
Alongside support for these critical community initiatives, this September Sainsbury's is extending its commitment to providing good food for everyone, every mealtime, by investing to keep prices low and to deliver great value, nutritious food for its customers.
For more information visit: Purpose in action | J Sainsbury plc.
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Notes to Editors
For more information about Magic Breakfast visit: Children's Food & Education Charity | Magic Breakfast
For more information about Rethink Food visit: Rethink Food – Food Education
Since 2021, Sainsbury’s has distributed over £5 million in community grants to more than 2,300 local charities and good causes through Neighbourly. These grants help support communities across the UK, funding local initiatives that tackle food poverty and help make good food more accessible to those who need it most. Partnering with Neighbourly to make good food more accessible | J Sainsbury plc
About Sainsbury’s
Offering delicious, great quality food at competitive prices has been at the heart of what we do since John James and Mary Ann Sainsbury opened our first store in 1869. Today, inspiring and delighting our customers with tasty food remains our priority and our purpose is clear – we make good food joyful, accessible and affordable for everyone, every day.
Our focus on great value food and convenient shopping, whether in-store or online is supported by our brands – Argos, Nectar, Tu Clothing, Habitat and Smart Charge. Sainsbury’s has more than 600 supermarkets and over 885 convenience stores. Argos is a leading digital retailer with over 80 per cent of its sales starting online and 20 million active customers. Digital and technology enables us to adapt as customers shop differently and our profitable, fast-growing online channels offer customers quick and convenient delivery and collection capability.
About Comic Relief
Comic Relief is a UK charity that uses the power of entertainment and popular culture to work towards a vision of a just world free from poverty. We raise money to support organisations that are closest to the communities who can make change happen. We support work that will tackle the impact of poverty, injustice, conflict, and climate change in the UK and around the world.
Since launching in 1985, we have raised over £1.6 billion thanks to the huge generosity and kindness of the public and our partners. For more information on our work, visit www.comicrelief.com or follow @comicrelief on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn for the latest content and news.
Comic Relief is the operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730).