Sustainable Food Places: setting course for the next decade

This year marks a number of key milestones for communities across the UK, as well as the thousands of organisations and groups helping people to access healthy and sustainable food.

Firstly, the 2024 election has seen a change in Government for the first time in 15 years, with promises to address the national crisis of poverty and food insecurity alongside re-energising the economy and addressing the housing crisis, which puts pressure on people's ability to afford nourishing food. The new Labour Government has activated a Child Poverty Task Force, as well as planning reforms to facilitate building more housing and giving more powers to regional mayors to transform their local areas.

Furthermore, Daniel Zeichner MP, Minister of State with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a longstanding advocate of Sustainable Food Places and is now acting 'food security minister', which offers an opportunity for the network to prove its worth as a key ally in improving the country's food system.

Read more about the new Government's plans and how food partnerships are responding to these political opportunities.

In good timing, this is also the year that the Sustainable Food Places (SFP) network enters its tenth year, from a modest collective of eight food partnerships in 2014 including Brighton & Hove, Cardiff, and Bristol, to a powerful network of 114 food partnerships across the four nations, representing the county's biggest urban centres as well as rural communities feeding its 68 million residents.

Westminster Day of Celebration and Action

Food Partnerships from across the UK are getting ready to convene in Westminster on 13th November alongside over 50 MPs across the political spectrum who champion for healthy and sustainable food for all. The event will be a chance to call on the Government to recognise the work of the Sustainable Food Places network in improving people's access to food, climate and nature, as well as the economy and community wellbeing, and demand a food partnership in every area alongside a Good Food Bill in every nation to set a strategy to transform our broken food system.

Unsung heroes

Food partnerships work locally with local government, community groups, businesses, farmers to make healthy, sustainable food more accessible and affordable while ensuring local producers, farmers and food businesses can afford to provide food that doesn't harm climate, nature or public health. In addition to on the ground work, partnerships also create long term local food strategies and influence policy changes so that future generations continue to enjoy good food. 

Food Partnerships have long been the unsung heroes in their local communities, for example being leaders on fast and well coordinated food support during the Covid Pandemic of 2020. That year, politicians began to recognise that food partnerships are critical local infrastructure in a time of a global crisis, thanks to their central mission of securing healthy, sustainable food in their communities, and this was further evident as food partnerships supported communities through the cost-of-living crisis.

Political recognition

The 2022 National Food Strategy acknowledged the value of looking to the network for solutions to the country's most pressing food-related challenges. The Green Party's Election Manifesto pledged "a food partnership in every area, and for a Local Food Enterprise Fund to be set up nationally." 

And more recently the Government reiterated a commitment to learn from food partnerships' innovative approaches to transforming food supply and community wellbeing. Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education), Lords Spokesperson (Equalities) said:

The government will be considering the role of place-based initiatives, including Local Food Partnerships, as we develop our plans to support our farmers and food and drink businesses, boost food security, invest in rural communities, deliver growth, manage waste more effectively across the supply chain, improve resilience to climate change and tackle biodiversity loss.

As we acknowledge the lessons of the past - mainly the critical importance of secure and resilient food supply chains and being prepared for future crises which are no doubt to come - this is the time to ensure that every community, no matter if it's rural or urban, no matter the nation, has a properly resourced food partnership working to secure a supply of healthy, sustainable and delicious food.

As the SFP network looks to the new Government to make good on their promises, it will continue to replicate innovative approaches around connecting good food producers with local communities, ensuring people have access to healthy, sustainable and culturally enriching food, as well as ensuring local and regional policies secure good practice in the long term. There is much to do, and 268 more local authorities to bring into our growing network!

SFP calls on Government to ensure:

• A funded and resourced food partnership in every local authority, alongside a food strategy endorsed by the council. 
• A Good Food Bill in every nation (already in place in Scotland), underpinned by an independent body to champion action and scrutinise progress. 

SFP calls on all MPs to:

• Champion the cause of their local food partnerships and local food organisations in Parliamentary platforms, including at debates, select committee hearings and elsewhere
• Visit local food projects and enterprises to better understand the challenges faced by their constituents in accessing and providing healthy and sustainable food
• Consult their food partnership as experts on locally-powered solutions to challenges facing the UK

 Read our Westminster Day of Celebration and Action MP Briefing in full.