Food allergy charity Natasha’s Foundation has today (1 June 2026) announced the launch of Natasha’s Prize, a £10 million investment into global research to ‘create a future without food allergy’.

Natasha’s Foundation (previously named The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation) was established by Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse in 2019, after their teenage daughter Natasha died due to an allergic reaction to sesame.

Ten years later, the charity is launching this £10 million prize in her name, aiming to unite global scientists to develop solutions to tackle food allergies – which impact around 220 million people worldwide.

With a focus on food allergy prevention, the five-year investment represents the largest fund for food allergy research ever awarded in the UK.

The prize will explore interventions that could be made from conception to age two that could prevent food allergy from developing. The first 1,000 days have been chosen as this represents a critical window of opportunity for prevention, the charity said.

Research has linked rising food allergy rates over the last two decades to several potential environmental factors, including industrial farming methods, climate change and pollution, heavily ultra-processed diets and immune system changes.

Scientists worldwide – including allergists, AI data analysts, dieticians, engineers, social and environmental scientist, microbiologists and epidemiologists – have been invited to apply to the Natasha’s Prize initiative from today.

Applicants selected by the prize’s scientific advisory panel will be united later this year to brainstorm solutions in a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach. The most promising ideas will then be invited to submit detailed proposals.

The foundation’s trustees and advisory panel will select the successful research, with winners to be announced on 1 June 2027.

Several retailers have made donations toward the initiative, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Marks & Spencer. The foundation is actively seeking additional investment beyond the £10 million, with ambitions to drive bigger impact.

Tanya Ednan-Laperouse said the prize offers a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” adding: “It will fund research focused on turning back the dial on a disease that affects millions of people both in the UK and around the world, leaving many living in fear”.

“We want this prize to galvanise the best science to stop food allergy before it starts, so no other families have to go through the heartbreak we will always endure.”

Sir Stephen Holgate, Natasha’s Prize director and clinical professor of immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton, said: “With a complex condition like food allergy we need a completely new approach, involving people from all different disciplines and that is what Natasha’s Prize is seeking to achieve”.

“There have been so many encouraging new developments in our understanding of food allergy over the past few years. However, we will launch Natasha’s Prize with open minds. The solution could be an intervention that primes the immune system to avoid food allergy, or preventative lifestyle changes. But we don’t want to prejudice the brainstorming process. We want to think creatively, boldly and without constraints. We could go in a completely different direction that we cannot yet anticipate.”

Top image: Founders Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse © Natasha's Foundation