News • Sustainable Food Places
First cities in the UK to be awarded sustainable food city status
Brighton & Hove, Cardiff, Plymouth and the London Borough of Lambeth have become the first places in the UK to be awarded Sustainable Food City status, recognising pioneering work promoting healthy and sustainable food. A rapidly growing movement is mobilising people in towns and cities across the UK transforming access to affordable and sustainable food as members of the Sustainable Food Cities Network.
Brighton & Hove is the first city in the UK to have food growing written into planning guidelines for new residential developments and to require all Council food procurement to meet minimum health and sustainability standards. Cardiff is improving availability of land for allotments and encouraging community growing in unusual spaces, while Lambeth has developed edible bus stops and Plymouth has created a cooperative of 30 local food producers that delivers affordable healthy and sustainable food to residents across the city. Each of the awarded cities is an inspirational example of what motivated people can do to make healthy, sustainable and local food a defining characteristic of where they live.
Through partnership with local authorities, charities, businesses and community groups, cities within the Sustainable Food Cities Network are working to tackle some of biggest social, economic and environmental issues today- from food poverty and obesity to the decay of our high streets and the disappearance of family farming, the loss of wildlife to the pollution of our soil, rivers, oceans and atmosphere using good food as a vehicle.
The awards were presented at a two day international Sustainable Food Cities conference hosted by Bristol, the 2015 European Green Capital, which will include representatives from seventy towns and cities from across the UK and Europe.
Tom Andrews, Soil Association national programme manager of Sustainable Food Cities said:
"Brighton & Hove’s Silver award and Cardiff, Lambeth and Plymouth’s Bronze awards recognise the extraordinary innovation and effort they have made to change attitudes and perceptions about food and create a more sustainable food system. Five years ago there were only a handful of places taking a united approach to promoting healthy, local, affordable food; today there are 40 and more and more are starting the journey each month through Sustainable Food Cities. In the absence of national government action, cities are taking on the incredibly serious food challenges that face us all and creating one of the fastest growing social movements in the UK today. Food is not only at the heart of some of today’s greatest challenges but is also a vital part of the solution. It will be interesting to see, in the weeks running up to the Westminster election, whether the main political parties recognise the urgency of these challenges and commit to doing what is needed to help tackle them.”
More than 50 urban areas across the UK are expected to join the Sustainable Food Cities Network by the end of the three-year programme in 2016.
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For press enquiries please contact:
Natasha Collins-Daniel, Press Office Manager – 0117 914 2448 / 07827 925380
ncollins-daniel@soilassociation.org
Hayley Coristine, Digital Communications and Press Officer – 0117 314 5170
hcoristine@soilassociation.org
Notes to editors
The Sustainable Food Cities network is an alliance of public, private and third sector organisations using food as a vehicle for positive change. The Network helps people and places to share challenges, explore practical solutions and develop best practice in all aspects of healthy and sustainable food.It is coordinated by Food Matters, Soil Association and Sustain, and is funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.
Sustainable Food Cities programmes take a cross sector partnership approach to work across six key areas:
1. Promoting healthy and sustainable food to the public
2. Tackling food poverty, diet-related ill health and access to affordable healthy food
3. Building community food knowledge, skills, resources and projects
4. Promoting a vibrant and diverse sustainable food economy
5. Transforming catering and food procurement
6. Reducing waste and the ecological footprint of the food system
For more information about Sustainable Food Cities visit www.sustainablefoodcities.org or on Twitter follow: @foodcities
Published Thursday 19 March 2015
Sustainable Food Places: The Sustainable Food Places Network helps people and places share challenges, explore practical solutions and develop best practice on key food issues, so if you are working to drive positive food change or are interested in developing a programme, please do get in touch.
