Tag: Fair Food

From Coops to Bulk Purchasing

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/

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!’.