Extended Table: New Food Justice Partnership Project

A new five-year, UK-wide partnership project titled Extended Table has launched this autumn 2025, using the power of food to bring people together, amplify community voices, and empower people to advocate for their community’s needs.

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 a national project led by NOW Group in partnership with Real Farming Trust, Cyrenians, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, OrganicLea and Hornbeam.

This comes from The UK Fund, one of The National Lottery Community Fund’s first significant commitments as part of its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, funding projects that support communities to come together – one of the funder’s four key missions.

Through a wide range of practical activities and events at community cafes and pantries, the project will create spaces for connection, learning, and collective empowerment. These welcoming food-oriented spaces will offer opportunities for people from different backgrounds, many of whom might never otherwise meet, to share experiences and build trust.

The Real Farming Trust will lead on learning, evaluation, and strategy development, ensuring that insights from the project inform wider efforts to build a fairer, more inclusive food system.

For more information, please contact: jade@realfarming.org