Best of Organic Market Awards recognise Bridging the Gap champions

This year the award has supported the vision of ‘Organic for All’, with categories for people and projects making organic affordable, available and accessible for everyone. Bridging the Gap is demonstrating ways to enable people on a low income to access climate and nature friendly food. The programme has 10 pilots running across the UK demonstrating initiatives that 

Winner of ‘Best Organic Out of Home’: Chef James Taylor (Hackney Primary Schools)

James Taylor is executive chef of two primary schools and the pioneer of the Hackney Organic School Food pilot, which is introducing organic fruit and veg into all school meals in two Hackney schools. The pilot applies a discount of 30% on fruit and veg bought from wholesaler Better Food Shed to cover the price difference between pre-pilot non-organic prices and the pilot’s organic prices.

Last week, the pilot hosted the ‘Hackney School Lunch’ to celebrate Harrington Hill and Sir Thomas Abney Primary School’s participation in the yearlong pilot project. Zosia Walzcak from Growing Communities and Kiloran O’Leary from Sustain shared pilot learnings with London councils, many of which have signed the London Food Purchasing Commitment, and discussed how we could continue this work on a larger scale. James cooked up seasonal organic produce to stuff inside Sourdough Pitas made from Hodmedod Emmer Wheat.

James Taylor, Hackney school chef, says:

"we have been able to serve around 80% more organic produce than we were doing previously which has been brilliant".

Winner of ‘Best Organic Champion’: Sean Ruffell (Organic North)

Other notable recipients included the winner of the “Best Organic Champion” award Sean Ruffell, managing director at Organic North, a wholesale distributor located in Manchester. The award recognises Sean’s hard work supplying more affordable organic produce to low income communities such as the Liverpool Queen of Greens pilot and to eight schools in Bury, as well as independent retailers, restaurants, bakeries and cafes nationwide.

Bridging the Gap’s Kiloran O’Leary says:

“Sean has been a powerful voice in the organic sector. He understands the complexity of how fruit and veg gets to our plates and he knows more that anyone that there’s a mountain to climb to turn the tide on our food system. It takes grit and determination and he is doing it with humility and great humour!”

Also highly commended were Bridging the Gap pilots Cardiff Farmers Markets, which sells local grown veg at an accessible price via a voucher incentive, and Give Peas a Chance!, which is supplying green split peas to 200+ schools across the North East of Scotland.