Tag: Fair Food

Join an Apple Day Near You

By Zoe Parker

Published 5th September 2025

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but they are also good for the planet. So let’s get juicing!

Apple Day is an annual celebration of apples and orchards. From the start, Apple Day was intended to be both a celebration and a demonstration of the variety we are in danger of losing, not simply in apples, but in the richness and diversity of landscape, ecology and culture too.

It traditionally falls on 21 October, the date of the first such event in 1990 set up by Common Ground, but events happen throughout September and October

Thanks to Leeds Urban Harvest and Fruit Works Co-operative we have apple pressing and juicing equipment available to hire or borrow in Leeds and Bradford. As a result many local community hubs, allotments and other outdoor spaces can hold public and private Apple Days.

There are 100+ fruit orchards  in Leeds and this great system we have where people can rent or borrow juicing equipment means lots of home-grown apples  that would otherwise go to waste, get picked,  juiced, eaten and stored, saving much food waste.

Your Autumn 2025 line up of Apple Days in Leeds and beyond.

 

14 September The Chemic Apple Pressing  2pm – a family friendly public event. Bring along your apples for pressing Arrive from 11am to help sort apples.

17 September Keighley Apple day at Yorgreen CIC with Fruitworks

20 September  Seacroft Community Forest Garden Apple Day 1-3pm

21 September Horsforth Climate Action Green Festival

23 September St Vincents from 1.30pm

4 October Apple Day Heart in Headingley 11-4 pm

4 October Skipton Apple Day 2025 at Middletown allotments

5 October Hollybush Apple Day

5 October Harehills Community Orchard 1-3pm

11 October  Headingley Farmers’ Market 

12 October Bradford Apple day

16 October Meanwood Valley Urban Farm  11-4pm

18 October Oakwood Farmers’ Market

18 October  Apple Day Hyde Park Source 12-4pm

26 October Apple Day Heaton Allotments, Bradford

Check out a fuller list on Leeds Urban Harvest schedule or get in touch with Fruit Works  for their Apple day events. See links below.

Read More about Fruit Works Co-operative
Read More about Leeds Urban Harvest
Let’s share the abundance

Browse our website for more Healthy, Sustainable and Fair Food Solutions including:

Apple Power  Read more about the great work being done in  Leeds and Bradford with apples.

Incredible Edible sites map Pick up some free veg at one of their 20 groups, 70 sites and 150 raised beds across the city in public spaces.

Veg Box Schemes – two local ones are Meanwood Urban Valley Farm. Leeds Veg Box. Discover more about Indie Local Food Busnesses in the Indie Directory

Leeds Food Aid Map  Find 140+ pantries, cafes and food aid busnesses if you need emergency food.

Leeds Good Food Map Discover Little Veg Libraries, Farmers Markets, Community gardens and lots more.

Download the Family Food and Wellbeing Leaflet
apple day 2025 incredible edible skipton
red apples
boxes of apples mixed colours
apple juicing

Apple Power

By Zoe Parker

Published 30th August 2025

Bradford is juicing up fresh solutions to the Cost-of-Living and Climate Crises

Tonnes of  apples go to waste all over Bradford District. Fruit Works Co-operative have established a coordinated juicing equipment library and service that diverts these surplus apples to four communities hubs.

This year, in autumn 2025, the project is supported by Fruit Works, but going forward it will be a self-funding enterprise for the four community hubs in Keighley, Shipley and Bradford. There are 4 ways the equipment can be used, depending on your needs.

Juice it yourself
Juice it for Fun
Juice it for you
Juice it with you.

Juice It Yourself
You borrow the kit for yourself, your family, friends, street or community group to make your own juice.

Juice It For Fun
The kit is used as part of a Community Apple Day, where people come together to celebrate the harvest.

Juice It For You
You bring your apples to one of the community hubs and they press them and bottle the juice for you.

Juice It With You
You bring your apples to one of the community hubs to make your own juice there, with their equipment.

Read More about Fruit Works Bradford

In Leeds with Leeds Urban Harvest  we are lucky enough to juice it up across the city.

Like Bradford, each year, thousands of fruit trees across Leeds go unpicked or unused because their owners can’t harvest them or there is too much fruit to use at one time.

Leeds Urban Harvest is a volunteer run community project that lends picking and processing equipment to groups to make juice from their excess apples.

Because there are more apples than people to juice them they also press and make use of surplus fruit donated by people, which would otherwise go to waste.

Four ways you can get involved in Leeds and fight the Cost-of-Living and Climate Crises

Pick It and Bring It.

Got surplus Apples ? Tell us about them here

hand in box of apples

Juice It for Fun

Come to an Apple Day! More about events here

children juicing diverse heritage

Borrow It 

Rent our equipment. Tell us about them here

Learn It with Us.

Learn how to press, juice and more by volunteering here

person sat up an aple tree smiling
Let’s share the abundance

Browse our website for more Cost-of-Living and Climate Crisis solutions including:

Leeds Food Aid Map  Find 140+ pantries, cafes and food aid businesses if you need emergency food.

Healthy Holidays  More about Healthy Holidays ( HAF) recently funded for the next three years! Read more.

Healthy Start  Go to this page for information on Healthy Start and for  links to other Family Food and Wellbeing services such as free school meals and uniform, money and welfare advice and more.

Incredible Edible sites map (who have 20 groups, 70 sites and 150 raised beds across the city offering free vegetable, fruit and herbs to the public and other

Download the Family Food and Wellbeing Leaflet
boxes of apples of various kinds and colours in crates
four crates of apples plus a woman stood holding another crate of apples i a field by a van
apples on a tree and fallen on grass
Apples red in a box in an orchard

Taking a bite into Food Stories

By Zoe Parker

Published 14th April 2025

Take a Bite out of This is a delicious slice of chat about food and what it means for friends, family & communities. It Airs on East Leeds Community Radio at Community Arts Centre Chapel FM and it happens Tuesday at 3pm on week 4 of the month.

Take a Bite Out of This offers sumptuous conversations about food, baking, cooking and what food means for friends, family and communities.

In this episode they talked with Elaine Barrow & Sonja Woodcock from Zest and FoodWise Leeds. They chatted all about the Food Stories project we recently ran.

Sonja and Elaine also talked about seasonal recipes, food systems & who influenced their cooking growing up. And interestingly, it seems that Dad’s as well as mother’s influenced their early cooking experiences. Take a listen here:

https:/https://www.chapelfm.co.uk/elfm-player/archive/2025/www.chapelfm.co.uk/elfm-player/archive/2025

More about Food Stories Project.

plate of delicious food for food stories harehills

Food Stories is a project run by Zest over 6 months bringing people together through the power of food. It was a simple premise – use the universal language of food to bring communities together to talk and eat.

Over the course of three 4-week programs, residents met in local places, experienced new activities and ways of talking with one another and  savoured delicious healthy food that was being offered right on their doorstep. This brought discoveries of new recipes and sharing of knowledge around food. Hunslet Moor Club’s world cookery club embarked on a flavourful Jamaica cooking, learning the art of healthy eating along the way. For one budding chef, this was the first step on a delicious path to a cookery course and a career in the culinary arts. A trip to Meanwood Valley Farm further cemented the bonds between participants, proving the power of food to unite and inspire.

A heartfelt thank-you to all involved who embraced this initiative with open arms and eager taste buds. Here’s to many more Food Stories in our communities!

comments of how delicious food was
diverse people visiting meanwood farm

From Coops to Bulk Buy

By Zoe Parker

Published 4th April 2024

Good News story about new models for emergency provision. This article shared via Sustainable Food Places was written by Andrea Gibbons, and shared as part of our #GoodFoodStories series.

Seventy people from within and outside our network of existing Sustainable Food Places members recently joined us for a pop-up webinar entitled From Co-Ops to Bulk Purchasing: Models for Emergency Food Provision. It was inspired by the wealth of thoughts and responses to a simple question posed to the network email forum by their coordinator, and our very own Sonja Woodcock of FoodWise Leeds. Her question:

“I’m keen to know what areas have food buying co-ops in place to support food purchasing for food aid provision? I’m surprised at how much food is currently being bought in Leeds and am interested in how a food buying co-op might work. Any insights would be welcome. I’m particularly keen to know how small food aid providers could be included.”

A similar and parallel discussion was simultaneously being had within one of the Soil Association’s My Food Community programme cohorts, led by Hull Food Partnership coordinator Darren Squires. They therefore teamed up to create a joint panel discussion on this topic.

Our session opened with thoughts on how and why coops and bulk purchasing are of value in supporting access to food through; consistency, quality, autonomy, control, empowerment, and cost control. The ensuing discussion touched upon, not only, food coops and the mechanisms of bulk-buying, but we also discussed; mobile food vans, the potential of social supermarkets, issues surrounding combining purchased and surplus foods, and how to tackle supply chain issues in urban and rural settings.

Our speakers were:

 

    • Kelly Fritzsche – Co-op Food Project Manager for Plymouth on their experience, including the model and mechanics of Food Co-ops and the roles within them, and their many benefits.
    • Ian Smith – Food Plymouth Core Enabling Team and CIC on their journey as a food partnership working on food access and insecurity towards food co-ops and social supermarkets, and the multiple cooperative connections and partnerships emerging from this work
    • Anna Route, development officer for Hull Food Partnership talked about their work with the council to optimise the spending of the Household Support Fund by accessing the council’s dynamic procurement bulk purchasing account with Turner Price to buy food for distribution among their network of foodbanks and pantries
    • Robert Garland, Bassetlaw Food Bank on their mobile van community shop, which provides access to rural communities to affordable food cupboard staples, fresh produce, and a range of toiletries and cleaning products.

The audience also brought a large amount of expertise to enrich the discussion, they included insights from:

 

    • John Westwood of Baobab Bach; with their network of food pantries and mobile van in the Southern Welsh valleys
    • Mary Vickers, community food coordinator for North East Lincolnshire, on their transition from foodbank to food pantry.

This conversation will continue as WE with Sustainable Food Places work towards food justice and access for all in our communities.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4hHYEDQY_8&t=4s

Watch more here on Sustainable Food Places youtube channel.

 

In this webinar : three different models for sourcing food 1) Co-operatives, 2) group purchasing and 3) small-scale bulk purchasing. Find out what is involved when you move from receiving donations to making purchases. Chaired by Sonja Woodcock from FoodWise Leeds and Darren Squires from Hull Food Partnership, the panel will include: • Ian Smith: Food Plymouth • Kelly Fritzsche: Food Co-ops Plymouth • Robert Garland: Bassetlaw Food Bank • Anna Route: Hull Food Partnership

Good News Stories: Cultural Food Hubs

By Sonja Woodcock

Published 29th January 2024

As part of #goodfoodstories Meet the Network we caught up with Rifhat Malik from Give a Gift before Christmas to learn more about Cultural Food Hubs.
Read on to hear what Rifhat has to say here!

Please tell us a little bit about what you do.

Give a Gift is a small charity and we’ve been running for 10 years supporting communities. We work with partner organisations through a referral process, but when COVID hit we had to digress from what we were doing and support people with food provision.

The council had set up a food distribution centre but due to logistics, they weren’t able to cater for the  diverse communities and their cultural and dietary requirements, which led to the inception of two cultural food hubs – Give a Gift and Hamara. The cultural food hubs were then able to provide culturally appropriate food packs to people.

What impact are cultural food hubs having in Leeds?

Very, very positive. We started to deliver the cultural food packs to the various communities, such as Eastern European, South Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Caribbean and it has been very well received. We get a lot of positive feedback. It is important for people’s dignity that they can access culturally appropriate food.

What challenges are the cultural food hubs facing?

The biggest challenge is that we’re getting a lot more people coming to us. Since the policy changes that have meant that asylum seekers and refugees are being dispersed from the hotels, we’ve been inundated with more and more people wanting to register for the cultural food hub. We’re also getting calls from schools wanting to register families – the demand is increasing.

During COVID, there were 33 Community Care hubs providing food aid. Since then, organisations have gone back to their core work, leaving 19 providers across the city, many providing a much reduced service. This has meant an increase in demand for not only cultural food hubs but all food aid providers due to the Cost of Living crisis.

In addition, the funding landscape is unsure. We’ve been well supported by the Council and VAL through the Household Support Fund, and we have good relationships wholesalers, but it is a challenge to meet the increasing demand.

I understand you received an award recently.

Yes. We were nominated last year for the Queen’s Award but when the Queen passed away it changed to the King’s Award.  I said to my husband wouldn’t it be nice if we were the first recipients of the King’s award. And yeah lo and behold it was announced last Tuesday!

So yes, we’re really excited about that. And to be honest with you, we’ve not really had time to digest it because we’re so front house and we’re operational, you don’t get a chance to chance to sit down and sort of take it all in. I’m hoping that it’ll actually open some doors for us. I think it will help with funding, as it will act like a stamp for accreditation.

To donate to Give a Gift https://giveagift.org.uk/about-us/

Healthy Eating Toolkit

By Emma Andrews

Published 16th February 2023

Healthy Eating Toolkit to help Healthy Holidays Leeds providers plan for provision!

This toolkit shares ideas for healthy eating messages and activities, as well as sharing related information with families.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TO ACCESS:

    • Spring food activities
    • Spring Healthy Eating Competition details. 50 vouchers for Leeds HH children and young people to win!
    • Training resources for your teams
    • 15 real examples from Leeds-based providers
    • Ideas including:
        • Preparing & cooking food
        • Creativity & healthy eating
        • Get moving with food
        • And more!

1:1 SUPPORT

 

 

FOLLOW ON SOCIALS FOR TIPS

 

    • Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for tips as you plan your Easter provision over the coming six weeks.

 

THANK YOU FOR FEEDBACK

 

    • Thank you to everyone who has given their feedback on this toolkit. We have added and continue to develop new elements that reflect your feedback.

    • Please send any future feedback to Emma via info@foodwiseleeds.org.uk.

 

 

 

 

About Healthy Holidays Plus

In collaboration with key partners, the Healthy Holidays Plus programme supports Leeds providers to embed healthy eating messages and activities across all future Healthy Holidays provision. This toolkit release follows the previous successful iterations across key 2022 holiday periods. All releases have been coproduced with a range of collaborators including local third sector organisations, schools, community hubs, key food providers, Leeds City Council and Leeds Community Foundation. Healthy Holidays Leeds has been running since 2018, providing nutritious food and engaging activities to primary and secondary school aged children and young people in receipt of free school meals and children and young people who have Special Education Needs or Disabilities.

For more details about the Healthy Holidays Leeds programme, click here.

 

Promoting the Healthy Start scheme out and about!

By Esther Bissell

Published 29th April 2022

Esther visiting local retailers, supported by Tina (foreground), Health Improvement Practitioner, Leeds City Council

Healthy Start Development Worker, Esther has been out and about in Harehills with support from Health Improvement Practitioner at Leeds City Council, Tina. They have been engaging with local retailers, talking about the Healthy Start scheme, and to look out for the new pre-paid card they will see families using to purchase healthy foods for their families. Esther says, ‘Our local retailers were so enthusiastic and supportive of the Healthy Start scheme. They have an important role to play in helping local families access healthy foods. It was great seeing their wonderful fresh produce on display, it really made you want to eat some tasty fruit and veg!’.