Sustainable Food – FoodWise

Leeds Composting Talk at Killingbeck Orchard

By Zoe Parker

Published 13th May 2025

Join the next Feed Leeds meeting to learn about two fantastic composting projects operating in Leeds.

We are really lucky in Leeds to host some brilliant composting projects. Come along Wednesday 21 May at 4pm to hear about them. Pick up tips for composting at home or with your community gardening group. Join Feed Leeds hosted by Killingbeck Orchard for a meeting to learn about these innovative composting methods and their benefits for your daily life. Whether you are planning to composting at home, or as part of a community group, you’ll gain valuable tips and techniques.

Let’s enrich our soil, reduce food waste, and support biodiversity together.

Presenters include:

Sol from Leeds Blue Marble who will talk about Bokashi Composting

Annie from Compost Collective Leeds talking about Community Composting.

When ? Wednesday 21st May, 4pm

Where? Killingbeck Orchard, Back Storey Place, LS14 6AW

Parking is available within 300-400 yards walking distance from the site, plus parking (for 2 or 3 cars) within 20 yards of the entrance on Watson Road

Support Compost Collective Leeds

By Zoe Parker

Published 25th November 2024

🌱 Compost Collective Leeds, is a city–wide community composting scheme revolutionising the reduction of food waste.

🌱 Did you know 200 kilos of food waste is produced by the average Leeds household each year? Yet 40% of this can be transformed into valuable free soil by being composted?

🌱 IMPORTANTLY not everyone can compost in their homes, and community composting is the solution.

What can you do to help build the compost revolution?

Why not ‘Pay it Forward’ and donate this Black Friday?

Inspired by the best and brightest from across the UK, we’ve designed a city-wide community composting system that already has 9 successful composting schemes sprinkled across the city.

In these images: (1) Compost Collective Hunslet bin with 3 people (2) Compost Collective Chapeltown with 4 people smiling holding caddies (3) 6 people at Compost Collective Horsforth at Drury Fields (4) Four children walking towards a compost bin

If you ‘Pay it Forward’ this Christmas, more communities across Leeds can compost their food waste.

How your donation helps:

💚£10 pays for one compost caddy for volunteers

💚£30 pays for the eco-stain to weatherproof the bins

💚£50 pays for 1 hour compost training for up to 12 volunteers

💚£75 pays for stencils and info panels for the bins

💚£150 pays for all the equipment you need to make one community composting bin

💚£900 pays for all the equipment you need for a full Compost Collective scheme for your community! With your help we can build a greener, climate-friendly Leeds.

Send your donation to: https://www.justgiving.com/zesthealthforlife

More about Compost Collective here: https://foodwiseleeds.org/community-composting-success

You tube playlist for short videos about Compost Collective schemes and Community Composting in Leeds

Feed Leeds’ Get Growing Leeds

By Zoe Parker

Published 24th September 2024

Call out for your Growing Stories and Photos 🌱🌱🌱

In more #GoodFoodStories, there is a Feed Leeds’ Get Growing Leeds project has been an enormous success with over 300 seedlings handed out and over 24 events across Leeds. We are celebrating what people have grown. We’d love you to send us any photos of the veg you grew.

We’d love to hear you if you came to an event, took home some seedlings or ran an event.

🌾 What did you grow and how did that go?

🌾 What are you planning on growing next year?

🌾 Any recipe recommendations you used things you grew in?

🌾 Send us recommendations, top tips or other growing stories.

📷👉Could you send us photos of what you have grown from the free seeds / seedlings.

We would love you to share your stories and photos with us. Huge thanks to those of you who already have. Send via email to Zoe: zoe.parker@zestleeds.org.uk

Not heard of Get Growing Leeds? Read more here. Want to know more about Feed Leeds other projects like Little Veg Libraries Sow a Row Xtra or Good Food Awards?

Get Growing Leeds

By Zoe Parker

Published 22nd April 2024

As part of our #GoodNewsStories, we wanted to share that Feed Leeds is launching #GetGrowingLeeds for 2024. Feed Leeds, is a sustainable food growing network dedicated to promoting sustainable food practices and has been hosting the #SowARowXtra campaign annually since 2021.

The campaign aims to inspire individuals with food growing skills to cultivate extra seedlings to share with others. These seedlings can be distributed among friends, neighbours, or through a network of Little Veg Libraries ( LVL), dropped off at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm or at Oakwood Market Garden.

Previously, in collaboration with Season Well, Feed Leeds organised workshops to assist those new to gardening or lacking access to growing spaces and resources. These workshops were well-received, with participants expressing enthusiasm and eagerness to begin their own growing projects. The initiative has not only fostered a sense of community and has helped individuals develop valuable skills in sustainable food production.

This year we wanted to grow the campaign by providing edible seedlings to more groups. We are doing this by linking up with existing community food growing events to provide seedlings, raise awareness of the importance of food growing and to celebrate the amazing community food growing projects across the city.

Growing your own food has so many benefits. Firstly, it benefits your health. Growing your own vegetables not only provides you with fresh, organic produce, it also gives you more control over the growing process, ensuring that no harmful chemicals or pesticides are used. This results in healthier and more nutritious vegetables that are free from harmful residues. Additionally, gardening can be a great form of physical activity, helping you stay active and reduce stress levels. The act of tending to your garden can also improve mental well-being and provide a sense of accomplishment. Furthermore, consuming freshly picked vegetables can lead to a higher intake of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, which are essential for overall health. Overall, growing your own vegetables can contribute to a healthier lifestyle and improve your overall well-being.

It helps create a sense of connection with the natural world around us. It offers opportunities for people to share skills and knowledge and to meet new people whilst becoming part of new growing communities. It helps us connect with the origins of food and increases access to affordable, healthy produce. Additionally, engaging in practical climate action through growing food can help us appreciate the value of food and reduce waste. By creating compost from food scraps, we can also contribute to good soil health.

Join the movement, reap the benefits, share your skills and expertise and ‘Lets #GetGrowingLeeds!’

You can share this image and this article with your friends and communities who may be interested in getting involved. Get out for latest updates for this and other projects by subscribing to our newsletter or this website.

Good Food Stories: Right to Grow

By Emma Andrews

Published 20th October 2023

Welcome to #GoodFoodStories Meet the Network! We’re doing a series of informal interviews with local food activists to showcase some of the great food work happening across Leeds with the aim of inspiring and building a good food movement.

First up is Dan Robinson from Incredible Edible Leeds, whose going to tell us about the Right to Grow campaign.

Hi Dan, tell us a bit about what you do.

Hi, I’m Dan Robinson. I head up Incredible Edible Leeds and I’m also on the board of the wider Incredible Edible Movement. Incredible Edible was set up to create kind, confident, and connected communities using the power of food. We work across communities, education and local business to show people where their food comes from and to enable people to lead happier, healthier lives by growing and eating local, healthy and sustainable food.

What is the right to grow. And why are you taking this approach?

It’s essentially what it says on the tin. It’s about giving ordinary citizens the right to grow food in the public realm. Lots of people want to grow their own food but don’t have the opportunity to do so for various reasons, including navigating the legal requirements and the red tape for accessing public land, which can be complicated. However, there’s a sense that both people within local authorities and ordinary citizens want to be part of the solution. And that’s where change comes from.

What’s been done so far?

A whole host of organisations have signed up to support Right to Grow including Sustain, the Food Ethics Council, and the Urban Agriculture Consortium, along with many sustainable food partnerships including FoodWise.

On the Incredible Edible website there’s a briefing for local authorities that lays out the benefits and the reasons for Right to Grow, including a draught motion that councils can put forward, and if they want to they can adopt it to have a Right Grow within their authority. Hull has recently done this and is the first local authority in the UK to do so.

What’s happening in parliament to support the Right to Grow?

In Parliament there’s been quite a lot of movement with an amendment tabled to the Levelling Up Bill, which is currently going through the House of Lords that’s got cross-party support. However, legislation takes a long time as there’s a ping pong approach going backwards and forwards between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. So we’re also looking at introducing a 10 minute rule bill in the House of Commons, where an MP gets 10 minutes to pitch the idea. While this doesn’t create legislation, it gets people talking about it and it can move up the agenda.

What would be the impact of a successful Right to Grow bill?

It’s got so much potential! It would pave the way for more community food growing projects and all the benefits that comes with that, and more wildlife friendly spaces in urban areas. And more local, nutrient dense foods freely available for those who need it most.

What has Incredible Edible Leeds’ involvement been?

Changing the law is of course fundamental but there’s lots that can and must happen while we work towards that. I’d love to have that proof of concept taking place in West Yorkshire, starting with Leeds leading the way ahead of national policy.

We need to tell the stories that show the benefits, develop tools and resources to make implementing a Right to Grow practical and possible. We also need to ensure that it’s reaching and impacting the communities that would benefit most from increased access to fresh, freely available fruit and vegetables – that’s why we’ve been developing the Incredible Edible network across Leeds.

How can community members take action and join the movement towards the Right to Grow?

Anyone interested in accessing land for food growing or wanting to find out more can take a look at the Right to Grow page on our website. On there you can write to your local councillors and your MP to tell them about the campaign and ask them to support either a local Right to Grow motion in Leeds or legislation in Parliament.

Many areas of Leeds have Incredible Edible projects, so take a look at edibleleads.org.uk to see if there’s a project in your area that you can get involved with. And if there isn’t, let us know if you’d like to create one and we can help.

Compost Collective Leeds: Pilot Success!

By Emma Andrews

Published 30th March 2023

FoodWise Leeds is celebrating the success of delivering a 1-year community composting pilot, in partnership with local grass-roots organisations and community groups. Compost Collective Leeds is now expanding across the city, with funding to establish six additional sites.

Jump to:

The Pilot
Our Approach
Growing the movement
Interested in setting up your own site?

THE PILOT

Since February 2022, FoodWise Leeds has partnered with grass-roots organisations and community groups to establish two community composting sites in Garforth and Seacroft. The ambitions for these sites were to enable community members to:

Reduce food waste by recycling food scraps
Create a free source of compost to grow local food, flowers and other plants
Collectively #compostforclimate and reduce their carbon footprint
Support their local green and growing spaces

In just 3 months, over 180 5litre caddies were emptied into community composting bins, transforming over 250 kilos of diverted food waste into a future free source of compost. This means approximately 950 kilos of CO2 emissions (GhGs)¹ have been saved; the equivalent weight of around 4 local alpacas at Leeds’ Meanwood Valley Urban Farm!

Once the compost is ready, local members will be collecting their share and any remaining will be given to local green/growing spaces (e.g. Incredible Edible Garforth community food growing beds and Seacroft Forest Garden).

Photo credit: Meanwood Valley Urban Farm

Local Councillor Katie Dye enthuses about her local site Compost Collective Seacroft:

“The scheme has been really successful. From experienced composters to complete beginners, the pilot has engaged lots of different people who are now turning food waste into compost to grow more food!

FoodWise Leeds were able to provide the guidance needed to set up and establish the site for long-term sustainability, with expertise and resources from bin design to delivering members training. Climate Action Seacroft has been a great support, co-facilitating training, looking after the compost bin and encouraging people along the way. Links have been made with community organisations such as the LS14 Trust who are offering a free tea or coffee with each caddy emptied and Chapel FM who are composting food waste from their cafe.

It would be fantastic to see community composting extended so that more people can benefit, and we can cut waste across the city.”

Compost Collective Garforth partners: Incredible Edible Garforth and Eco-Friendly Garforth. Funded by Outer East Community Committee and Food for the Planet (Sustainable Food Places).

Compost Collective Seacroft partners: We Are Seacroft, Climate Action Seacroft and LS14 Trust. Funded by Inner East Community Committee and Food for the Planet (Sustainable Food Places).

GROWING THE MOVEMENT

With strong links to the Leeds Food Strategy, the vision for Compost Collective Leeds is to work in partnership with local communities to grow a network of community compost sites across Leeds. Taking action towards this and based on the success of the pilot, FoodWise has secured funding to develop an additional six sites in partnership with other Leeds-based communities.

Compost Collective Leeds sites provide communities with a tangible way to take action in caring for themselves, their communities and the planet.

INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A SITE?

If you are a local organisation, community group or community member interested in setting up a local Compost Collective Leeds site, please get in touch with FoodWise Leeds (info@foodwiseleeds.org) to discuss how we might support you and your community.

Footnote: ¹Calculation based on insights within the UK Food System GHG Emissions report (WRAP) (i.e. approximately every kilo of food waste in the UK is associated with 3.8 kilos of GhGs (CO2e)).

Join the next Feed Leeds meeting to learn about two fantastic composting projects operating in Leeds.

THE PILOT

GROWING THE MOVEMENT

INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A SITE?

Footnote: 1 Calculation based on insights within the UK Food System GHG Emissions report (WRAP) (i.e. approximately every kilo of food waste in the UK is associated with 3.8 kilos of GhGs (CO2e)).

Footnote: ¹Calculation based on insights within the UK Food System GHG Emissions report (WRAP) (i.e. approximately every kilo of food waste in the UK is associated with 3.8 kilos of GhGs (CO2e)).