Maximising impact: the vital role of food partnerships in public health

Blog post from Sofia Parente, Head of Local Action, Sustain, and Callum Etches, Impact Lead – Sustainable Food Places Programme, Food Matters for the Local Government Association (LGA)

Local food partnerships have become an increasingly widespread feature in places across the UK. The membership of the Sustainable Food Places Network has over 100 local food partnerships, and many newly formed partnerships are seeking to join the network. These partnerships are hosted by, or share close links with, local government bodies and are often closely aligned in their priorities, particularly public health. They bring together stakeholders across sectors to establish a vision and work plan for transforming the food system in their local area and coordinate the action to make this vision a reality. Many go on to establish a long-term food strategy for the local area, in close collaboration with the local authority. 

Taking a whole systems approach

Local food partnerships look at the ‘big picture’ and take a holistic and integrated approach to address local food system issues. This whole system approach fits well with the vision in Public Health teams, especially those that adopt a whole systems approach to obesity and are seeking to shift away from a service delivery focus and towards a more collaborative, preventative and facilitative approach. The Cochrane review of obesity prevention initiatives and the McKinsey Global Institute analysis of interventions both concluded that no single solution creates sufficient impact to reverse obesity. They perform a valuable role in bringing colleagues together from both within and outside the local authority, sometimes in contexts where these relationships had been historically segregated or poorly coordinated. This is essential in the context of a whole systems preventative approach to obesity where collaboration with other departments and organisations across the local area is key. 

Widening representation and extending the reach of public health 

Against a background of stretched resources and limited capacity, food partnerships bring welcome insight and specialist expertise. They widen representation and bring a diversity of perspectives, particularly from the community and voluntary sector. They are valued as bodies that are independent and outside local party politics. Many food partnerships are effectively extending the impact of Public Health teams which is particularly important in this context of chronic financial constraints. For example, many food partnerships are involved in coordinating food insecurity networks or running their own projects to address root causes of food insecurity. Others are involved in campaigns and projects which directly reduce health inequalities and increase life expectancy in areas of higher deprivation such as healthy eating campaigns to increase the amount of fruit and vegetable consumption and access to healthy food, school food interventions or piloting new approaches to healthy and sustainable public sector catering. 

This combined expertise, drive and collaborative approach is catalysing the development of significant new projects. For example, many food partnerships are involved in transition away from food banks to other models combining healthy food provision and wrap around support such as benefits and debt advice, wellbeing services, skills and employability, and housing support.

Food partnerships support local governments to have dialogues with a wider range and greater number of people than they could have acting through their own channels alone. Rather than focusing on a single outcome, many Public Health leads feel that a whole system approach on a range of food issues represented a stronger platform to achieve specific goals for healthy weight.

Obesity costs are forecast to rise to £9.7 billion a year by 2050 and malnutrition is estimated to cost the NHS £19.6 billion a year. Properly funded food partnerships could contribute to reduce these figures through extending the reach of Public health and track record in drawing down additional funding to complement existing services or commissions or help build the capacity of community and voluntary sector organisations. Funding success often flows from the partnership’s strong evidence of collaboration and long-term planning, alongside a commitment to monitoring, evaluation and learning. 

Connecting to a wider movement 

The food partnership model is widely evidenced as providing a framework, vision and source of expertise for action on local food issues. Being connected to a large and established national network and community for public health innovation encourages knowledge sharing, gives credibility to work at the local level and helps to gain the support of senior managers and other local stakeholders. 

Food partnerships, and the UK recognition they obtain through Sustainable Food Places award scheme, are reported to have an important role in bringing visibility to local efforts to address food system issues. 

In some areas, the work of food partnerships has attracted substantial national and sometimes international interest, not least at the LGA’s 2023 Public Health Annual Report 2023 ‘Supporting communities in difficult times’, and has been a source of validation for local government, agencies and communities. 

An increasing body of evidence of the impact of food partnerships can be found in the Sustainable Food Places impact pages