Publications

Food Co-ops, and other projects and campaigns run by Sustain, have produced a number of publications about buying and selling local food that can help communities, schools, colleges, universities and workplaces set up and run their own food co-op, buying group or other community food enterprise.

Our main and most popular publication is the Food Co-ops toolkit.This is available to download as a pdf or you can access the content via our online and navigable version.

Food Co-ops Toolkit - a simple and comprehensive guide to setting up food co-ops

This 150-page, comprehensive toolkit has been produced as part of the Big Lottery funded Making Local Food Work programme to help more communities...

Good Food Retail: Six London boroughs taking action

This summary report captures what’s been achieved by a cohort of councils working on Good Food Retail with the support of London Food Link over...

Growing enterprise guide

The Growing Enterprise Guide offers urban growers detailed advice and practical information about how to sell what you grow in the city, whether at a...

Cracking Community Cafes: Your people

This fact sheet looks at leading and managing the people involved in your community café. It suggests some simple things you can do to build a...

Food & Finance: How small-scale food enterprises raise the money to grow

The Food & Finance report presents the findings of research into how small-scale food businesses and community food enterprises have secured...

A Growing Trade - a guide for community groups growing food to sell in our towns and cities

This Local Action on Food report highlights the commercial opportunities for community grown food and showcases initiatives that are doing it...

A Healthy Profit - a simple guide to pricing the food you make or grow

This report aims to help community food organisations price their produce, to cover their costs and make enough healthy profit to fund other social...

Growing Communities: manual of monitoring and evaluation

This report details the way in which the pioneering social enterprise, Growing Communities, monitors and evaluates its work. As well as explaining...

Growing Manchester(s) Veg People - a guide to setting up a growers' and buyers' co-operative

This practical guide details the creation and development of an innovative growers' and buyers' co-operative aiming to increase the availability of...

The story of Moss Brook Growers - how to set up a horticultural enterprise from scratch

This manual gives a step by step guide to how Moss Brook Growers set up a mixed horticultural social enterprise from scratch. It will be invaluable...

Food Supply and Distribution - evaluation of this strand of the Making Local Food Work programme

Independent evaluation of the Food Supply and Distribution strand of the Making Local Food Work programme, conducted by Dr Stuart Jones of the...

Information Technology and small-scale food organisations: Is IT a nightmare?

This paper aims to share the experience that Sustain has had in working with community-run enterprises that trade in local and sustainable food, to...

Local Food Links: The first 10 years

A review of the development of Local Food Links by Tim Crabtree, its former director and one of the founders of the Bridport Centre for Local Food....

How to set up a food co-op or buying group in a university or college

This simple "how to" factsheet advises universities, colleges and student groups on how to make fresh, local, ethically produced food more...

How to set up a food co-op or buying group at work

This simple "how to" factsheet advises people in workplaces on how to make fresh, local, ethically produced food more accessible to themselves and...

How to set up a food co-op or buying group in a school

This simple "how to" factsheet advises schools on how to make fresh, local, ethically produced food more accessible to the local community, whilst...

Grow a Grocery: A guide to starting and growing a wholefood co-operative

This guide is designed to help bring more wholefood co-operatives into the world by spreading the business model tried and tested by Unicorn Grocery...

An investigation into the workings of small-scale food hubs

One of the key challenges facing local food is the issue of economically viable and sustainable distribution. This report analyses 11 small-scale...

Building a Sustainable Food Hub - three reports on research into community food enterprises

These three combined reports share the learning from pioneering projects taking part in the Food Supply and Distribution strand of the Making Local...

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