The food system is all the processes involved in feeding a population. That system is broken, and we are here to fix it.
How do you fix the food system?
We wish there was an easy answer to this! We don’t have a magic bullet, but we do have a very important starting place: by working with people. We work closely with people and organisations, to give everyone a voice on how we shape our food system. We prioritise real conversations, where we’re listening, learning, and working side by side with communities.
We believe that people who will be affected by a change, should participate in deciding what the change should be. Whether it’s a change to their diet, their lifestyle or a change to their food system, we support people to take control over decisions that are made which affect their lives.
We do this by:
- Working with organisations and people to embed participation into their strategies, enabling as many voices as possible to come into their work
- Working within the criminal justice system to advocate for food as a tool for positive change
- Providing participatory facilitation, evaluation, and strategic design services to support people in coming together to achieve meaningful change
- Teaching essential nutrition and cooking skills to people experiencing marginalisation, using food to build essential life skills
What does this look like in practice?
Where we began
Food Matters was founded in 2003 when a group of food campaigners recognised a need to help local people translate national and European food policy into meaningful strategies and actions relevant to people’s local circumstances and communities. Our first major project was writing the UK’s first food strategy. To do this, we brought together hundreds of stakeholders from across the city, inspiring wide public engagement with the topic of food, and prompting people to think about how they could make meaningful changes at a local level. As part of this process, the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership was born, as the organisation to co-ordinate the actions from the food strategy.
Today, there are more than 120 food partnerships across the country- and we are proud to have played a part in that transformation. Supporting food partnerships to grow and evolve continues to be a central part of our work.
Food Matters today
Food Matters today is a CIO, Charitable Incorporated Organisation. We run a range of programmes including food and criminal justice , and Sustainable Food Places.
Our funding comes from a range of revenue streams including grant funding, commissioned project work and income from our training, facilitation and evaluation services.
Get In Touch
Reach out to the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do, get involved or to collaborate with us on a future project at [email protected]
