How Bite Back evaluated their programme to fight for a healthier future

How Bite Back evaluated their programme to fight for a healthier future

Bite Back is a youth-led movement campaigning for a fairer food system. Through their secondary school programme, Bite Back in Schools, they aim to amplify student voice and help young people recognise the power they have to influence the world around them.

In this partnership interview we hear from Andy Rayment, Programme Manager and Daniel Gallacher, Head of Programmes at Bite Back about how they worked with ImpactEd Evaluation to fight for a healthier future. Alongside Deepta Sunil, Senior Manager at ImpactEd Evaluation, who led the evaluation, they discuss how independent evaluation integrated with programme delivery, what did the evaluation discover and what Bite Back will be working on in the future.

[DS] Could you tell us a bit about Bite Back and what problem you're trying to solve?

[AR] At Bite Back, we’re a youth-led movement campaigning for a fairer food system. We exist because right now, the system has been designed in a way that makes unhealthy food the easiest, cheapest and most heavily promoted option for young people, especially in the places where many children live and go to school.

Young people are surrounded by junk food advertising, price promotions and environments that push unhealthy choices at every turn, while healthier options are often less accessible or less affordable. That isn’t about individual failure or “bad choice,” it’s about corporate responsibility and a system that has been set up to fool us.

Our role is to work alongside young people so they can better understand the forces shaping their food environments, challenge them, and campaign for change. Through our secondary school programme, Bite Back in Schools, we aim to amplify student voice and help young people recognise the power they have to influence the world around them. This year, we’ve supported 100 schools to improve their food environments, from strengthening school food systems and increasing the visibility of healthier options in canteens, to making nutritious food more affordable, accessible and appealing for students.

Why did Bite Back decide to commission an independent evaluation, and why did that feel important to you as an organisation?

[DG] Independent evaluation felt really important because we wanted an honest, evidence-based understanding of whether our programme was actually making a difference for young people. As an organisation working in advocacy and systems change, it’s easy to rely on anecdotal feedback or inspiring stories, and those stories matter but we also needed robust evidence.

We wanted accountability to the young people we work with, to schools, to funders, and to ourselves. If we’re asking schools to dedicate time and energy to this programme, we need to be confident it’s meaningful and worthwhile.

Having an independent evaluator also creates distance and objectivity. It allows findings, both positive and challenging, to carry more weight and credibility than if we assessed ourselves alone. At the time, we also didn’t have a dedicated monitoring and evaluation lead within Bite Back, so we simply didn’t have the internal capacity or specialist expertise to carry out that level of evaluation rigorously in-house. Bringing in an independent evaluator meant we could ensure the process was robust, credible and genuinely useful in helping us understand and strengthen the programme.

What were you hoping the evaluation would tell you that you couldn't find out on your own?

[AR] We were particularly interested in understanding the deeper impact of the programme: not just whether students enjoyed it, but whether it was changing knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in meaningful ways. At Bite Back, we see ourselves as a learning organisation. We’re open to feedback and genuinely want to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where we can improve. Over time, we’ve adapted the programme in terms of both its length and content, so it was important for us to understand whether those changes were still delivering the impact we hoped for.

We also wanted insight into things that can be difficult to observe internally, such as:

• whether students’ understanding of the food system was genuinely improving,

• whether they felt more empowered to speak up,

• how the programme was landing across different school contexts,

• and where there were unintended consequences or gaps.

An external evaluation can often spot patterns and tensions that organisations close to the work might miss. That level of challenge is incredibly valuable because it helps you improve rather than simply validate what you’re already doing.

The most recent evaluation found some really encouraging results, the 15% increase in pupils' understanding of the link between their local environment and their health stood out in particular. What do you think is driving that kind of shift?

[DG] We think that shift comes from helping young people connect the dots between their everyday experiences and the wider food system around them. Our programme, particularly the assembly delivered by one of our Youth Board members, is designed to create that real “penny drop” moment, where young people begin to recognise how the food environments around them are being shaped, and how those influences affect their health and choices every day.

A lot of students already instinctively know that unhealthy food is everywhere, but the programme gives them language and frameworks to understand why that is. When students start analysing the advertising near their schools, the availability of fast food in their neighbourhoods, or the cost and accessibility of healthier options, it becomes clear that health is shaped by environments and policies, not personal choices.

It’s a powerful reframing. It moves the conversation away from individual blame and towards systems thinking. Young people often respond really strongly when they realise these pressures aren’t random, they’re structural and commercial.

One of the more nuanced findings was around pupils' sense of agency. Awareness improved, but perceptions of personal power within the food system declined slightly. How do you read that?

[AR] We actually think that’s a very understandable, and in some ways an honest finding.

As young people learn more about how powerful and entrenched the food system is, they also become more aware of the scale of the challenge. Realising that multinational companies, advertising systems and political decisions shape food environments can initially make individuals feel smaller within that system.

The challenge for us is making sure awareness is paired with collective action and pathways for change. Agency doesn’t just come from knowledge; it comes from seeing that people acting together can influence decision-makers. That’s why campaigning, youth leadership and collective action are such important parts of Bite Back’s work.

The evaluation also flagged some persistent challenges: affordability, limited fruit and vegetable provision, overcrowded dining environments. These feel like structural issues that go beyond what any school programme can fix alone. How does Bite Back think about its role in the face of those bigger barriers?

[DG] Those findings reinforce exactly why Bite Back exists. Young people are often told to “make healthier choices” while operating in environments that make those choices difficult, expensive or unrealistic.

A school programme alone cannot solve food poverty, reshape local high streets or transform school food infrastructure. But what it can do is help young people recognise those barriers as systemic rather than personal failings and equip them to speak up about them.

Our role is partly educational, but it’s also about advocacy. We want to amplify young people’s lived experiences so policymakers, schools and industry can no longer ignore them. The evaluation findings give additional evidence that these barriers are real, widespread and affecting students daily.

It also reminds us that improving children’s health requires coordinated action across government, schools, local authorities and industry, not just behaviour change campaigns aimed at young people.

What does the evaluation tell you about what Bite Back needs to do differently or better going forward?

[AR] One key learning is that awareness alone isn’t enough. We need to keep strengthening the pathways between understanding the problem and feeling able to influence change.

That means creating more opportunities for collective action, more visible examples of youth-led impact, and stronger connections between school-based learning and real-world campaigning.

The findings also highlight the importance of context. Different schools and communities face very different barriers, so programmes need to remain flexible and responsive rather than one-size-fits-all.

And importantly, the evaluation reminds us to keep listening to young people. Some of the most valuable insights came directly from students describing the realities they face every day. That kind of lived experience should continue shaping how the programme evolves.

What would you say to other organisations in the youth or food space who are considering whether to commission an independent evaluation?

[DG] We’d strongly encourage it, even if it feels daunting.

Independent evaluation isn’t just about proving success, It’s about learning. Some of the most useful findings are often the uncomfortable or unexpected ones, because they help you strengthen your work and deepen your impact.

For organisations working on complex social issues, especially systems change, evaluation can also help build a clearer picture of what meaningful progress actually looks like. Not every important outcome is immediate or straightforward.

And in the youth space specifically, independent evaluation can help ensure young people’s experiences and perspectives are captured with credibility and weight. That matters when you’re trying to influence schools, policymakers or wider public debate.

Ultimately, evaluation gives you evidence, but it also gives you accountability, and both are incredibly important when you’re trying to create lasting change.

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