Alexandra Rose Charity has been working with Neontribe to improve and better scale its Rose Vouchers for Fruit & Veg project. This project enables families on low incomes to redeem vouchers for healthy, low-cost food with participating market traders and greengrocers.

How it works

The vouchers are distributed from children’s centres and other community organisations that give a weekly voucher for each child of a family susceptible to food poverty. This network of local partnerships has multiple benefits, including supporting local traders and independent businesses, as well as the families who participate.

The need

There was a challenge in scaling this project, as it was time-consuming to create and redeem the vouchers. There was also a need to track each voucher’s journey and understand where families needed additional support. Working to improve the process, Alexandra Rose Charity sought expertise from digital agency Neontribe on how it could utilise technology to reach more families and alleviate the time-consuming processes that staff were facing.

A new digital solution

Neontribe built a digital solution enabling the operations team, market traders and children’s centres to easily scan Rose Vouchers. Part of this new digital capability is an app that can be downloaded to any mobile device or handset. Not only has this made the process more efficient, but it has also improved data accuracy as the scanning process removes the potential for human error. 

Outcomes and impact

Leveraging technology has allowed the charity to better understand beneficiaries and the journey of each Rose Voucher. Data analysis shows the number of vouchers being distributed and used as well as which centres or traders are processing the most transactions. 

In May 2023, Alexandra Rose Charity reached a new milestone by reaching 2 million Rose Vouchers issued by 66 family and community centres and spent with 58 different market traders and greengrocers across 8 locations, such as London, Glasgow and Liverpool.

The first million took seven years to achieve compared to the second, which took only 18 months. Although this is likely to have been influenced by the pandemic and cost of living crisis, the digital solution has allowed the charity to accelerate voucher distribution and manage the demand from the public.

This network of partnerships, including working with digital agency, Neontribe, to use technology to better serve families, has contributed to the Alexandra Rose Charity’s vision for everyone to have access to healthy and affordable food.