The Sustainable Food Places programme, delivered by Food Matters, The Soil Association and Sustain, helps launch and support food partnerships across the UK.  Food partnerships are now a national movement creating healthier and more sustainable food systems in their areas.

From obesity to food poverty, waste to climate change, we believe food is not only at the heart of some of our greatest problems but is also a vital part of the solution.  Cities, towns and counties have the power to create a more equitable food system, with food partnerships play a huge role in creating more sustainable local food systems. Through the Sustainable Food Places programme, we help create new food partnerships and sustain current ones by bringing together policy makers, businesses, and local communities to change policies and promote healthy and sustainable food for all.

How it began

In 2002 Food Matters was commissioned by Brighton and Hove City Council to run a food mapping exercise. The process involved listening and engaging with individuals, community groups, initiatives, businesses and local authority departments, and giving a voice to those involved and impacted by local food policy. From this work the first Brighton and Hove Food Partnership was born, along with the Brighton and Hove Food Shed report, and a comprehensive food strategy and action plan.

Food Matters went on to support the development of further Food Partnerships before becoming a partner of the Sustainable Food Places Programme.

We bring many years of experience in facilitating and building participatory processes to Sustainable Food Places, where:

We support local food partnerships to grow and prosper by providing support, guidance and training. We provide a framework for systems level change by benchmarking success through our SFP Awards programme and guiding action through our six theme framework.

We connect stakeholders across a disparate national food system by convening and coordinating a national net-work of food system stakeholders and by joining up work across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We put communities at the heart of local food decision-making by providing tools, guidance and training on facilitating meaningful, iterative community participation.

We facilitate peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange by convening spaces for learning and sharing of good practice and by facilitating peer-to-peer support through our coordinator mentoring programme.

We drive change at a strategic and policy level by supporting partnerships to develop local food strategies and action plans and by advocating on behalf of local partnerships at a national level.

We fuel the growth of a nation wide good food movement by leading national campaigns that empower, inform and inspire local food action.

We evidence the impact of the food partnership approach by providing tools, knowledge and expertise in research and evaluation.

We have supported the development of over 100 food partnerships across the UK through the Sustainable Food Places programme.

The Brighton & Hove Food Partnership is now the UK’s leading city food partnership and holds a Sustainable Food Places Gold Award for their pioneering integrated, and sustainable food policy.

Food Matters have supported the development of 90 food partnerships across the UK through the Sustainable Food Places programme

Find out more

Read more by downloading the evaluation report below.

Report

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.

Get In Touch

Get in touch with the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do or get involved. We also want to hear from you if you would like to collaborate with us on a future project.