Documenting the impact of your food partnership: introducing the SFP Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Toolkit
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Newham bans unhealthy food advertising.
Newham Council becomes the seventh London borough to welcome in restrictions on unhealthy food advertising as they build the policy into a drive on tackling health inequalities.
Rethinking British Fruit and Veg Supplies
Remember in February, when UK salad supplies ran short and Thérèse Coffey, the Environment Secretary, told us to eat turnips? She was right that we should all be eating more seasonally, but it’s unfortunate that she chose turnips as an example, when there are so many more inspiring winter vegetables. As anyone who grows their own or buys from a local vegetable box scheme will tell you, it's perfectly possible to grow a wide range of seasonal vegetables year-round, including salad leaves, in the British climate.
Exploring the Positive Impacts of Food Hubs
Imagine Leeds - the climate action hub, Leeds
Supporting food access through partnership working - learning from COVID-19
Our Approach to GDPR
Sustainable Food Places (SFP) is a partnership programme led by the Soil Association, Food Matters and Sustain. SFP also has an evaluation partner the University of the West of England (UWE). As the programme is hosted by the Soil Association, all data relating to the smooth running of the programmes’ aims and communications falls under the Soil Association’s approach to GDPR and privacy policy.
Growing Communities: Farmer-Focused routes to Market report: NEF Consulting, with the Soil Association, conducted an evaluation of the impact of Growing Communities.
This evaluation suggests that for every £1 spent by customers on veg box schemes or farmers’ markets, a further £3.70 is generated in social, economic and environmental value.
It’s not just teaching and curriculum that need a boost in September - what about school fruit and veg?
Sofia Parente, Sustainable Food Places Policy & Campaigns Coordinator at Sustain writes about the SFVS.
Originally published by Fuse Open Science Blog.
Edinburgh's local response to Covid-19
Edinburgh’s public sector, food organisations and local groups have all come together to help tackle the COVID-19 crisis.
Edinburgh's local response to Covid-19
Community Food and Health Scotland. Mar 2018. Chopping and changing
evidence and ideas to improve the impact of your cooking skills courses. NHS Health Scotland. 52 pages https://www.communityfoodandhealth.org.uk/publications/chopping-and-changing/
This report uses evidence from a realist self-evaluation study group to show the impact of cooking skills courses on people who are affected by health inequalities: vulnerable people and parents managing on a low income.
The team behind the programme
Sustainable Food Places is a partnership programme powered by the Soil Association, Food Matters and Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.
New Economics Foundation. May 2011. ‘The Benefits of Procuring School Meals through the Food for Life Partnership. An Economic Analysis’ NEF. 40 pages. http://www.foodforlife.org.uk/~/media/files/evaluation%20reports/fflp-nef----benefits-of-local-procurement.pdf
NEF looks at the economic benefits of the Food for Life Schools programme and finds that in Nottinghamshire the programme returns £3.11 in social, economic and environmental value for every £1 spent. In addition, ‘comparing current spending and re-spending in Nottinghamshire now and prior to a focus on procuring locally and seasonally shows that the total amount of money circulating in the local economy from this source has increased substantially, from £181,418 in 2004 to £3,826,688 currently.’
Soil Association Food for Life. 2016. “A Healthier Place: The impact of the Food for Life programme”. SA Food for Life https://www.foodforlife.org.uk/about-us/our-impact/evaluation-reports
Food for Life’s programme evaluation looked at the health, economic and environmental impacts including increase in free school meal uptake in FFL schools, increase in the consumption of fruit and vegetables for children at school and at home and for their parents, increase in the procurement of more ethical, sustainable and local produce via the Food for Life Served Here.
Soil Association Food for Life. 2016. ‘A Healthier Place: the impact of the Food for Life Programme’. Soil Association Food for Life. 12 pages https://www.foodforlife.org.uk/about-us/our-impact/evaluation-reports
Food for Life shows the impact its whole school approach and multi-settings programme have on health and well-being and the local economy. This latest report shows that for every £1 spent on Food For Life (FFL) there is a social value of £4.41 created over a three year period. It also shows that pupils in FFL schools reported consuming almost one third more portions of fruit and vegetables than pupils in comparison schools. It also found an increase in free school meal uptake in FFL schools and an increase in the procurement of more ethical, sustainable and local produce via the Food for Life Served Here.
Brighton & Hove Food Partnership’s Grow Food online resource provides a wealth of information on how to get involved in growing and their Harvest project helped triple the number of community gardens in the city. Sharing the Harvest is a follow-up project acting upon the idea that food growing can positively impact people’s health and happiness.
The ‘Developing a food strategy’ theme of the SFP Toolkit – the blue section – contains resources to help you develop a sustainable food vision and strategy. In particular these resources will be useful:
Develop an action plan to deliver the food strategy in an inclusive, participatory and collaborative way through following suggestions in the Action planning guide and facilitating Action planning workshops
Fringe Farming Toolkit
The fringe farming toolkit is for growers, campaigners and food partnerships to start farming the fringes of towns & cities. It is made up of practical guides on accessing land, navigating the planning system and getting local support for agroecological food growing.
The Fringe Farming toolkit lays out practical steps and advice to help growers, aspiring growers, campaigners, food partnerships and local community groups wanting to progress either their own agroecological peri-urban market garden or the broader fringe farming movement. It should also be a handy resource for local and national authorities to boost the delivery of their economic, environmental, health, and food procurement strategies and objectives.
Each guide (or tool) of the toolkit addresses three key barriers:
The toolkit is a joint effort between the Fringe Farming project and Sustainable Food Places, based on our experiences of working with food partnerships, with valuable input from pioneering consultants.
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s Planning for Health Supplementary Planning Document increases the protection of existing allotments and community food growing space and provides for the creation of new spaces (p15) arguing that they ‘provide opportunities for outdoor recreation, contributing to physical and mental wellbeing’ and ‘provide a place for people to interact and to produce healthy locally grown food, which can help to improve the diet of residents.’
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