These are recordings and resources from our session on Food & the Community held on Thursday 27th May 2021.

Thanks to Iain Chambers for facilitating this session. Iain is the founder of the Brighton Food Factory and Community Manager at the Bevy Pub. Formed in January 2020 to address food inequality through meal production, Brighton Food Factory reinvented itself at the start of the Covid 19 crisis to source and distribute fresh local produce for the emerging local community food hubs and existing food banks. BFF are currently developing an ambitious non-profit enterprise, to help contribute to a resilient, regenerative food system in Sussex. The model aims to show that food systems can change through collaboration, shared organisational knowledge and being part of the circular economy and community wealth building movement that has shown such promise in different parts of the world. You can connect with Iain through this site.

The session begun with a video tour of Gateshead Community Organisation.
Gateshead Community Organisation started in 2018 as a cafe in an under utilised council building. The cafe provided work placements to learners on a supported internship from a local college. In response to the needs of these young people and the community they have quickly evolved. In their video they will explain their response to Covid, how they have adapted their model to provide a hot meal delivery service and their plans for the future to respond to the needs of their local community.

You can view a recording of this tour HERE

Participants were then split into one of three break out rooms-

Room 1: 100 Year Street- Hosted by Becky Vipond, Squash

Becky shared the Squash experience of the benefits/challenges of visioning/imagining beyond a lifetime and the transformative power of reclaiming food production. Squash is a community organisation, based in Liverpool. Since 2007 they have been making positive social change in their neighbourhood through exciting, participatory food and art practices including food-growing and cooking, arts and crafts, and through our affordable food shop and café.
Via their community-designed building & kitchen garden Squash have a 100-year vision, inspired by nature; they are actively transforming their Neighbourhood into a people-powered place that is known throughout the world for being a playful, resilient and a loving community where everybody thrives!

A recording of this session will be available ASAP

Room 2: Food Fairness for All - Hosted by Kay Johnson MBE from the Larder

Kay's interest in food began at an early age, she was brought up on a small farm, spent a brief spell as a chef and worked as a nutritionist managing food poverty initiatives nationally and overseas for 20 years. 6 years ago she set up the Larder as a social enterprise in response to the need for a solution to food related issues and to provide information around food sustainability, and in 2019 she established the Larder cafe as the first workers co-operative in Preston
This session discusses the Larder's mission to ensure Food Fairness For All and explores how fresh local produce can be made affordable to people on low incomes without farmers, producers, animals and the environment bearing the cost.

You can view a recording of this conversation HERE

Room 3: A New Business Model for the Alternative Food Scene - Hosted by Martin Yarnit

Martin is freelance journalist who focusses on sustainable food. Martin has researched the contribution of food hubs in the US and coops in Italy to creating sustainable support systems for small food producers and for food distribution. He proposes that the UK needs: a food hub in every town or city with a network of smaller local food centres, with initial finance from LEPs, local authorities and trusts, designed to overcome the fragmentation and lack of scale that act as a brake on the development of the alternative food scene in the UK. A link to his paper can be found on our resources page.

You can view a recording of this conversation HERE

Just some of the organisations mentioned by participants in this call are as follows-

https://www.gatesheadcommunity.org

https://brightonfoodfactory.org

https://larder.org.uk

https://squashliverpool.co.uk

https://www.powertochange.org.uk

https://www.thebevy.co.uk

If you attended this call and have any resources to share that relate to these topics you can do so on the resources page of this website.

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