Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs: Free Kids' Cooking Sessions and £25 Vouchers Up for Grabs

What are the Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs?

If you've got children off school for six weeks and a food budget that doesn't stretch as it used to, Lidl has just announced something that could help out some UK families.

The supermarket is running free Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs in five UK cities over the holidays, teaching kids to cook healthy meals they can recreate at home, and it's giving away £25 vouchers to help families afford the ingredients.

The clubs are free, the voucher entry is free, and there's a catch or two in the small print that we'll walk you through, because that's what we're here for.

What are the Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs?

The Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs are free hands-on cooking sessions for children, running through the school summer holidays in Bristol, Carlisle, Croydon, Manchester and Wolverhampton.

Lidl has teamed up with OnSide, a youth charity that runs a network of Youth Zones across the country, and the sessions take place in those Youth Zone centres rather than in Lidl stores. Around 1,000 children are expected to take part this summer.

The sessions focus on quick, healthy, and cheap recipes that kids can make again at home, which is what makes this more than a nice day out.

Lidl's own research found that a third of children are more willing to try healthy food if they've helped prepare it themselves, so the whole idea is to send them home wanting to cook. Every child who attends also receives a free fruit coupon, redeemable through the Lidl Plus app on a parent's phone.

This is the second year of the wider Lidl Foodies programme, which already runs in over a quarter of British primary schools and has reached 640,000 children so far. The Summer Clubs are backed by a £100,000 donation on top of the £675,000 Lidl has put into the schools scheme, so there's real money behind it rather than a token gesture!

Why is Lidl doing this?

The clubs were announced alongside some eye-opening research into what children actually know about food. Lidl commissioned Censuswide to survey 1,000 UK children aged 8 to 11, and the results are the sort of thing you'd laugh at if they weren't a bit worrying.

One in five children think strawberry milkshake and tomato ketchup count towards their five-a-day, roughly one in ten believe ice cream and cake do too, and over one in five don't know where broccoli comes from, with guesses including a factory, a freezer and a tree.

There's a serious side underneath the funny answers, and it's one most parents will recognise. The same research found that 86% of parents feel the school holidays put extra pressure on providing healthy meals, with almost a third worried about the price of nutritious food.

When free school meals aren't available for six weeks, the food bill rises at exactly the moment the entertainment bill does too, and cheap filling food is usually easier to reach for than healthy food.

A supermarket teaching kids to cook is good PR for Lidl, of course, but if your child comes home able to make three cheap healthy meals, you've gained something real regardless of whose logo was on the apron.

How do I get a free £25 Lidl voucher?

Alongside the clubs, Lidl is giving away £25 vouchers to spend in-store, entered via a free prize draw, and you can enter the £25 voucher prize draw online, but you'll need to do it before midnight on Tuesday the 28th of July, so don't sit on this one, as that deadline is days away as I write this.

Entrants must be 18 or over, and vouchers are handed out on a first-come, first-served basis.

Spend that voucher wisely, and it could keep the kids fed for days. £25 at Lidl covers a week of fruit, veg and lunchbox fillers for most families, or the ingredients for every recipe your child brings home from a cooking club.

If you're already a Lidl shopper, download the free Lidl Plus app before you visit anyway, since that's where the weekly coupons and discounts live, and it's where the clubs' free fruit coupons are redeemed.

What if I don't live near one of the five cities?

This is the question Lidl's announcement doesn't answer, and it matters, because five cities leaves most of the country out. The good news is that free holiday food support exists almost everywhere; it's just run by your council rather than a supermarket.

The Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) funds free holiday clubs across England that include activities and a proper meal, for children who receive benefits-related free school meals. Search your council's name plus "HAF" to find what's running near you this summer, as most councils publish their club lists in the weeks before the holidays.

And whether or not there's a club near you, the restaurant chains have your back this summer too. Dozens of UK chains are running kids eat free or £1 meal deals right through the holidays, from Tesco Café to Toby Carvery, and we've gathered every verified deal with its dates and small print in our full kids eat free guide.

Between a free cooking club, a council HAF place, supermarket café deals and Morrisons' free Kellogg's holiday breakfasts, a family can eat remarkably cheaply this summer with a bit of planning.

If you want to try the cooking club idea at home without a club place, it costs almost nothing to start. Pick one cheap recipe a week, let the kids do the jobs that make them feel trusted, and build from there; the research suggests the involvement is what changes their eating, not the venue.

Kids Eat Free & Cheap Summer Food: Your Questions Answered

What are the Lidl Foodies Summer Clubs? They're free cooking sessions for children running through the summer holidays at OnSide Youth Zones in Bristol, Carlisle, Croydon, Manchester and Wolverhampton. Kids learn quick, healthy, low-cost recipes to make at home, and each child gets a free fruit coupon via the Lidl Plus app.

How do I get a free £25 Lidl voucher? Enter the free prize draw through the link on Lidl's announcement page before midnight on Tuesday the 28th of July. You must be 18 or over, and vouchers go on a first-come, first-served basis.

Are the Lidl cooking clubs really free? Yes, the sessions are free for children attending through OnSide's Youth Zones, funded by a £100,000 Lidl donation. No purchase is required, and the free fruit coupon each child receives is redeemed through the free Lidl Plus app.

What if I don't live near one of the five club cities? Check your council's Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, which funds free holiday clubs with meals across England for children on benefits-related free school meals. Search your council's name plus "HAF" to find local sessions.

What is Lidl Plus and does it cost anything? Lidl Plus is Lidl's free loyalty app, offering weekly coupons, discounts and prize draws. It's also where the Summer Clubs' free fruit coupons are redeemed, so it's worth downloading before any club visit or shop.