Developing costings for food system investments across the Greater Brighton Region.

Regional food systems are the future, being a scale large enough to make an impact, yet small enough to drive local changes.

Food Matters worked in partnership with Alex Britten-Zondani, Food Systems Consultant and Brighton & Hove Food Partnership to develop potential costings for food system investments that could be made across the Greater Brighton region. The work was commissioned by the Greater Brighton Economic Board (GBEB).

Because food is so integral to so many elements of our lives, investing in food systems approaches has a broad and long-term impact across many areas. The GBEB wanted to be investment ready with projects that not only bring economic benefits to the region but also health, social, environmental and equity.

The project team conducted research to reach a shortlist of five investment opportunities.

  • A new regional dynamic food procurement system.
  • A new Greater Brighton sustainable food logistics depot.
  • Training and support programmes that would put local businesses at the forefront of circular economy practices.
  • Community supported agriculture that would see land co-owned across communities and farmers.
  • Community composting across Greater Brighton.

It was important to us that the projects were seen as parts of a whole system approach to food infrastructure.

The recommendations of the project, presented to the Greater Brighton Economic Board, were to combine these potential investments into one systems change project for the region – Greater Brighton: The Future of Food. It has the following potential set of strategic objectives:

  1. Systems approach to economic growth
  2. Local food to local markets
  3. Minimum waste, maximum efficiency
  4. World-leading experts and skilled communities
  5. Maximised social, health, environmental, equity and place outcomes for every £1 spent

The Greater Brighton Economic Board will be further consulting across each Local Authority to coordinate a systems change approach across the region, with the view to securing future investment for the work, beginning with investment in a regional food depot.

“Thank you for delivering such a robust and useful piece of work”

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