Members | Sustainable Food Places

Food Durham

Food Durham is the County Durham Food Partnership. We are an informal partnership of organisations and individuals working to raise awareness of the importance of food and how it relates to the economy, the environment, health and well-being, and issues of social justice and bring about change. Our vision is for a food system that is Healthier, Greener and Fairer and where every household has access to ‘good food’ – food that is safe, nutritious, of good quality and environmentally sustainable.

Food Durham is currently hosted by OASES - Outdoor and Sustainability Education Specialists.

Our Advisory Board is chaired by Rich Hurst from Durham County Council.

We are currently reviewing our sub-group structure to ensure that they meet the needs of stakeholders and engage with a broad representation of Public Sector, VCS and Commercial organisations.

Our General Membership is open to anyone who wishes to receive Food Durham Newsletters and other relevant updates.

What we do

Food Durham developed its Sustainable Local Food Strategy 2014-2020 in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. Its action plan led to the development of projects such as Growing Durham; a resource supporting community growing projects across the County and the Durham Food Hub, which focuses on business to business sales; sub-groups focusing on public procurement and community growing; engagment in County Council partnerships including Environment in your Community and the Healthy Weight Alliance.

We have achieved significant outcomes such as the adoption of Sustainable Procurement Policies across Durham University and Durham County Council; inclusion of food in Durham County Council's Climate Emergency Response Plan and a strong network of community-based food projects. We support the voluntary and community sector with networking, training, resources and information.

Recent strategic development work has grouped our shared activity into 4 key themes:

Food, Health & Wellbeing
Food Economy and Production
Food, Community and Citizenship
Food, Climate and Nature

Food Durham has achieved a 5* Sustainable Fish Cities award; a Bronze SFP award. We are involved in the Sugarsmart and Veg Cities campaigns and became a pilot area looking at ways of developing a Good Food Movement across the county.

As long-term members of the SFP network, Food Durham is part of the North East Sustainable Food Alliance, a group of SFP partnerships that meet regularly to ensure our activitiy is joined-up where appropriate and develop joint projects that can address issues at a regional level.

We are excited to be working towards our Silver Sustainable Food Places Award.