Civil Food Resilience in practice: capacity-building for resilience across Sustainable Food Places

Supported by SFP Programme partner Sustain, the group sought to

1. act on the recommendations within the National Preparedness Commission’s report ‘Just in Case: seven steps to narrow the UK’s civil food resilience gap’ (Lang et al, 2025)
2. integrate learnings from the community food sector and local government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic
3. use the recommendations and learnings to inform resilience and preparedness planning ahead of future crises, emergencies and systemic supply chain shocks.

This report outlines key learnings; existing good practice; challenges and infrastructure gaps; and recommendations for action for food partnerships and community organisations, local government, regional resilience bodies, and the UK government.

The recommendations in this report outline how to expand this work from a current patchwork of good practice into standard practice within every local authority, with roles for:

• the Sustainable Food Places programme
• individual food partnerships
• local authorities, mayoral strategic authorities and Local Resilience Forums
• national Government leadership

The research is clear: action is needed at every level to ensure we are more prepared for when crises come. Evidence from the Sustainable Food Places network shows that significant work is already taking place on the ground, serving to mitigate and reduce the risks of crises, national emergencies and related supply chain shocks.

This report recognises the determination and ingenuity of Sustainable Food Places who are paving the way and building capacity for food resilience across the UK.

Accompanying case studies are available via Sustainable Food Places.