Speaker

Alicia Weston is the Founder and CEO of Bags of Taste, a behaviour change programme that tackles the real reasons people in disadvantaged communities struggle with food. While teaching at Crisis, she saw that traditional cookery classes, although enjoyable, were not leading to people cooking at home. Drawing on her background in finance, policy and science, she looked beyond the usual assumptions about skills or budget and identified the deeper psychological and socio‑economic barriers that shape food choices. These include low confidence, competing priorities, and the belief that cooking is difficult, time consuming or not worth the effort.
Alicia designed the Bags of Taste model in response to these findings. The programme is mentored and home based, supporting participants to think about when they will cook, how they will fit it into their routines, and how to make new habits feel manageable and rewarding. By applying evidence based behaviour change techniques and addressing the wider determinants of health, Bags of Taste consistently delivers sustained improvements. Participants cook more from scratch, reduce reliance on takeaways, and save an average of £18 per week, strengthening household resilience and long term habits around food.