“Having the Rose Vouchers makes a big difference. With the vouchers, I can put more veg in meals, like tonight I’m making spaghetti bolognese, and I can add carrots to it to make sure my kids have some veg. The extra veg also helps fill them up. I always want to add fruit or veg to meals. I feel guilty if I can’t put a bit of veg on the side; without it, meals could just be processed food, and I want them to have their 5-a-day.
My kids will eat fruit any fruit put in front of them. I usually buy apples, oranges and carrots, but with my Rose Vouchers, I can try the kids on different fruit and veg that I wouldn’t usually buy in the supermarket.
The van is brilliant. I pick up my Rose Vouchers every Wednesday from the children’s centre, and the fruit & veg van is there at the same time, so we can go straight to the van and buy what we need. The staff on the van are lovely. They know my name and what I usually have on my shopping list. It’s nice to get my daughter involved in shopping too. I can give her the Rose Vouchers to pay, and it feels safe. I can’t do that in the supermarket. It’s great she’s also seeing where our food comes from and that it doesn’t just appear in the fridge.
Fruit and vegetables are so expensive in the supermarket, I want to buy them for my kids, but my budget doesn’t stretch to what I need for two children. If I bought all the fruit and veg I buy on the van in my normal shop at the supermarket, I wouldn’t have much money left over for anything else we need.
The food that costs the most is always the stuff you need most for your kids. It’s cheaper to get a burger than a salad; it shouldn’t be that way around.
On the van, I’ve found a lot more fruit and veg my kids like, which I’d never thought to try before. One day there were melons on the van, and I just picked one up to give it a go. Now I buy a melon every week as my one-year-old son loves them. I wouldn’t have discovered this before as I wouldn’t have bought it.
I’m so happy that my children are trying different fruit and veg. They wouldn’t have this variety if we didn’t have Rose Vouchers. What we buy has changed 100% since I’ve had Rose Vouchers. I had never bought raspberries before as they’re too expensive and go off quickly, so I’d think they were a waste of money when I could get apples and bananas instead. Now my children get to have raspberries. That’s why I like the van, because I see things on there I wouldn’t normally pick up.
I do think Rose Vouchers are great. Now I’m a part of the project; I see how many people Rose Vouchers help.”