This week, we sat down with Jenny, who lives in Liverpool with her partner and their three young children. For the past three years, Jenny has been receiving Rose Vouchers through her local children’s centre and spends them at the Queen of Greens mobile grocer.

In our conversation, Jenny shared how Rose Vouchers ensure that her family always has fresh fruit & veg at home. Plus, we talked about why organic matters and her success growing some of her own fruit & veg on her allotment. Organic produce is available at the mobile grocer as part of a Bridging the Gap pilot, helping make sustainably grown food more accessible.

Jenny’s thoughtful responses are a reminder that the epidemic in food-related ill health is not a collective failure of willpower. If we lay the right groundwork, children want to eat healthy food, but affordability remains a huge issue. Rose Vouchers mean that people like Jenny can buy their choice of high quality fresh fruit & veg for their families, week in, week out.

Tell me a little bit about what healthy eating means to you.

A good variety of foods, ranging from fruit and veg to pulses, multigrains, lots of variety, basically.

Is there anything that makes it harder for you to eat healthily?

The affordability of fruit and veg is definitely a factor.

Is that something that has changed over time?

Yeah, I had twins, and that’s pretty much when I [started receiving Rose Vouchers]. With the cost of living increase, I unexpectedly had twins after having [our first child], so it was the financial shock of that, really. We were both made redundant within a month of each other, so there were lots of things that went on at the time when the boys were born.

Do you think that the cost of living and the affordability of fruit and vegetables affect a lot of people where you live?

Yeah, I’d say it affects people who are even on a really good wage, it must be affecting them. We’ve definitely felt it, and having three small children, we just absolutely plough through fruit and veg, so I can only imagine other people are in a similar boat.

How old are your kids now?

The twins are three, and my daughter is five.

I know that you’ve been getting Rose Vouchers for three years. What difference have they made to the way that you and your family eat?

They’ve made a huge difference, and they’ve made it so that it’s a regular weekly occurrence where we will 100% be having fruit and vegetables in our home, and that’s fresh fruit and vegetables. I mean, we do eat a lot of fresh food anyway, but I think if we didn’t have the vouchers, we would definitely have to go without other things, for sure.

Is there any fruit & veg that you and the kids particularly like?

The apples are brilliant. They come in a huge bag, and they’re small, they’re child-friendly sizes, so if your child is having a day where they’re not eating as much and don’t eat the full apple, you don’t feel like there’s as much waste as if it were a huge apple. They’re really practical for us, the smaller apples and satsumas. They’ve got small watermelons at the moment, I got one on Monday, and we’re looking forward to trying that because the kids love melons.

Where do you spend your Rose Vouchers?

It’s called Queen of Greens, and it’s a travelling bus. It goes to different spots around the city, so I’ve been to a few of the other [stops], but [Dingle is] more practical because it’s where I collect my Rose Vouchers. It’s really brilliant. It’s lovely and it travels all around the city. Queen of Greens is Monday to Friday, so that’s really handy. Sometimes I can just pop into the children’s centre and retrospectively pick up my vouchers and then go to a different site.

They’ve just started to introduce organic onto the Queen of Greens bus, which has been really, really nice. It puts it into people’s shopping, when I couldn’t afford to buy organic things on a weekly basis, so that opens up something to me that would have been totally unaffordable.

We love Queen of Greens too! What is it about the organic produce that you value?

Just the values of it and the fact that it’s pesticide-free. We’re not really bothered about what our fruit and veg looks like as long as it tastes good, so we were using a lot of the wonky boxes. I think it was Asda that was the first one to do it back in the day; we were using that quite a lot, and we’ve been trying to grow our own as well. We’ve got a small allotment, so we’ve been growing since lockdown, since we had our first baby. I’ve been trying to grow little pieces here and there. It’s become less realistic since I’ve had the twins. It was far more fruitful back in the Covid days, when it was just me and my daughter, but we are trying to grow a little bit here and there.

We love that! Is there anything in particular that you’ve had success with?

Green beans are really good because they typically thrive on neglect, haha. We did lots of tomatoes a few years ago. We had loads of strawberries one year and made jam for our neighbours. We’ve been trying to grow bits and bobs, and we made chutney for the neighbours one Christmas as well.

What do you think would make buying and eating healthy food easier for everyone?

It’s a great question. I don’t know if they could put subsidies on it to make it more affordable, because I guess in the long run, it would even itself out. If people are eating healthier, they’re far less likely to need medical interventions further down the line. It’s been linked to mental health as well.

Who do you think has the power to change that and make that happen?

I think the large supermarkets. It would be nice for the smaller independents if they were supported by the government, to help them as well and push them so people continue to use them.

Anything else that you’d like to see change?

Perhaps this whole idea of healthy food and fruit and vegetables having to look perfect, and there is so much food waste, and I do find that really quite sad.

Is there anything else that you wanted to share about your experience of receiving Rose Vouchers?

Just that we’re incredibly grateful for it, it’s been a lifesaver. My daughter is actually sick today, and I think it instils healthy attitudes in them as well, so she’s actively asking for healthy food. She just asked for a fruit platter. I think it is really important, especially for children, to start it young and build up from there.