- Growing food together
- Calling for hospital food standards
- Campaigning for bees, forage and a pesticide free city
- 2,012 new food growing spaces by the end of 2012
- For better school food, and food skills, and protecting children from junk food marketing
- An informal network of London restaurants and catering businesses that care about sustainability
- Evidence of the contribution of food and farming to climate change
- Find or set up a Food Co-op in your area
- Helping producers, consumers, retailers and caterers provide healthy and sustainable food
- Inspired by the London 2012 Food Vision, the campaign for healthy and sustainable food in catering
- Sustainable food news in London
- Working for sustainable food at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
- For bread made with natural ingredients
- Challenging businesses and citizens to make London the world's first Sustainable Fish City
- Practical advice for anyone interested in buying and using more sustainable food
download
Download a PDF version of A Growing Trade - a guide for community groups growing food to sell in our towns and cities
resources
Visit the Local Action on Food homepage, or follow the links below to view pages from this site section
This Local Action on Food report highlights the commercial opportunities for community grown food and showcases initiatives that are doing it already.
The report shows examples of food that is being produced as close to the market place as possible and the opportunities for community food growing projects to make links more widely in the community as well as generate income to contribute towards project costs and to lift the ambitions of the people involved.
What can be more exciting and sustainable than buying vegetables and herbs grown by someone down the road? Having a chef serve fresh organic salad from a community food growing site harvested just hours before service? Buying delicious urban honey at a local farmers market? These are just some of the amazing examples of food that is being grown by local people in our towns and cities and sold to local people who are keen to buy it.
A Growing Trade looks at the nuts and bolts of how this can happen and the opportunities for community food growing projects to trade more of their own produce and, in doing so, get some independence (from short-term grants) and contribute to the economic vitality of their neighbourhood.
"Food growing projects are not only empowering people to take back control over how their food is produced and sold, they can also improve the appearance of the local environment and strengthen relationships in local communities by bringing life and activity to disused areas."
The report covers mainly fruit and vegetable cultivation and sales, as these are the most common crops produced in our town and cities. There are also fewer regulations governing their production and sale, than there are for livestock products. However, it also looks at examples of animal products including honey, eggs and fish being produced and sold in an urban environment.
Report contents
Introduction
- The problem with our food system
- Communities growing their own
- Funding for community food growing
- Community food growing - growing up
- A Growing Trade
Land issues for communities in cities growing and selling food
- Finding the plot
- Help with negotiating land
- Taking on land for commercial purposes
- Community food growing and the Allotment Act
- Selling produce from allotment land
- Using buildings for growing and selling food
- Planning permission
Jobs, apprenticeships and volunteers
- Creating jobs through trading produce
- Selling community grown produce as part of a wider trading enterprise
- Apprenticeships: Growing a work force
- Volunteers
Local investment in your venture
- Community Supported Agriculture
- Going private
Finding customers and promoting what you do
- Market research
- Planning your route to market
- Unique selling points
- Communicating with your customers
Urban Crops
- Salads, herbs and niche crops
- Honey
- Fish
- Processed produce
- The right market
- Selling directly to restaurants
- Distributing through a box scheme
- Selling from a market stall
Preparing produce to sell
- Safe soil
- Labelling
- Organic certification
- Packaging
- Weights and measures
- Permits and licensing to sell food from a market stall
- Public liability insurance
What should you do with the money you make?
- Having a bank account
- Taking money
- Pricing
- Money: the who, how and what
What kind of enterprise?
- Business planning
- Unincorporated associations
- Incorporation
Directory of case studies
- Avon Organic Group
- Ecoworks
- FARM:shop
- Food From the Sky
- Growing Communities
- Moffat CAN
- Organiclea
- The Wenlock Herb Garden
- Other interviewed projects and examples of community trading
Funding and local food organisations
- Funding organisations
- Other useful organisations: National
- Regional support and local networks: London
Appendices
- Appendix 1: A guide to selling fruit and vegetables
- Appendix 2: Template invoice (download word version)
- Appendix 3: A Basic Costing Spreadsheet (download excel version)
References
Photo credits and thanks
Registered charity (no.