North East and North Cumbria celebrate first year of benchmarking council action on food

The celebration event was held 26 of September in Darlington College and brought together councils, food partnerships and other organisations in the region to celebrate the collaboration. Participants heard about the current context in the North East including challenges and opportunities, examples of good practice from the region, and inspiration from Sustain projects. This was followed by a networking session to discuss local work with thematic leads ranging from school food to community food growing.

Results of the benchmarking will be published later in 2024 and over the next two years, councils will learn from each other and access a network of peer-support, repeating the benchmarking annually to measure progress.

This event is part of the partnership between Sustain and the North East region to pilot the Good Food Local approach that is seeing the region work towards more healthy and sustainable food for its residents. The project, funded by Impact on Urban Health, has so far seen all 12 North East councils plus Cumberland Council submitting information about what action they are taking on food under six key themes, ranging from tackling food poverty, diet related ill-health and access to affordable healthy food, to building a sustainable food economy.

Councils have an important role to play in creating more healthy and sustainable food system so residents can access affordable, healthy and climate and nature friendly food. This will reduce health inequalities and close the gap between the most and least affluent people in our country.

Hannah Crump, Local Policy Coordinator at Sustain says:

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Partners in the North East have bold vision for reducing health inequalities in the region. Benchmarking what action councils are taking is an important first step in understanding the current situation and drawing a roadmap for improvement.

Lucy Chapman, Programme Manager for the Association of Directors of Public Health North East and Chair of the Good Food Local North East Steering Group says:

We’re incredibly pleased to have the opportunity to shine a light on some of our regions approaches to good food, the benchmarking process allows us to celebrate our achievements whilst also highlighting opportunities for improvement helping us to make the case to continue taking action on food for our people and communities.

The event was held in Darlington College:

Darlington College was excited to host the North East Good Food Local Celebration Event in their conference suite, offering their Culinary Arts Academy students valuable real-world experience as they served a variety of dishes throughout the day while continuing to develop their understanding of sustainability in the food industry.

REfUSE worked with third year catering students at Darlington College to develop a delicious South-East Asian themed meal for participants including, katsu chicken curry, pickled cucumber/shallots, kimchi, miso custard tarts and matcha meringues.

About REfUSE

REfUSE is a social enterprise based in Chester le Street working towards a healthier, more sustainable food system. They intercept food that would otherwise go to waste and turn it into healthy, accessible meals, served on a “Pay as You Feel” basis at their volunteer run community café. Through the café and their community engagement activities they are raising awareness, inspiring and empowering people to play an integral part in community-led transformation of the food system in the North-East.

Staff from REfUSE led a discussion around the true value of food thinking about all the inputs that go into growing, processing, packaging and transporting food. They looked at the sustainable food economy, the true cost of ultra processed food and thought about how food waste could be reduced. The students took part in practical sessions learning about using limited ingredients and extending the shelf life of products through fermenting by making chilli sauce and kimchi. The students were challenged to make a more sustainable menu for the Good Food Local event by thinking about ingredients, where they come from and what the impacts of using different ingredients might be.

REfUSE hopes to develop this piece of work with students into a regular unit of the catering course.