We talked about the biggest issues facing community food provision, what we need and could offer each other, and what we could work on together. Some of our ideas for actions were:
- getting a collective van to help with distribution
- setting up a shared community kitchen in the city centre
- learning about what’s happening in other places e.g. the Queen of Greens grocery van in liverpool.
- collaborating to supplement surplus food deliveries with culturally appropriate foods
Key issues in providing community food
- Increase in food poverty / demand while food banks closing and supply is struggling
- Supermarket surplus pick ups bad quality
- Wrap around support for all the other complex needs associated with food poverty.
- Keeping volunteers and reliable people.
- Need to influence the levers of power – no champion of food or food committee.
- Information and marketing of offers e.g. food growing sessions at Green Estate with low uptake.
- Funding – not enough, no continuity or stability – long application processes, competitive dynamics, hard to find time to bring partners together to work on joint bids.
- Cost of food.
- No culturally appropriate food (e.g. for black communities) in surplus drops.
Offers and asks
- A city centre venue with a kitchen that could be used by multiple projects.
- Understanding where empty / underused kitchens are eg. Scouts, Moorfoot
- Offer of food scraps to compost in exchange for produce
- Transport and distribution – network of drivers and access to vans
- Storage for food and equipment
- Surplus of food from allotments
- Quick food for those with low energy / income
What do you want the working group to do / work on?
- Look at what other places are doing e.g. Queen of Greens grocery van – go on visits / connect up.
- Culturally appropriate meals and food access e.g. African Greens to supplement local shops / Fareshare deliveries.
- More focus than the local Food Action Plan (overwhelming)
- Clarity around why these particular working groups are meeting and their purposes.
How do we want to work together?
- Owned collectively, we decide what is most important
- Respectful of each other’s work and contexts
- Good information sharing between working groups
Ideas for July 8th celebration event
- Celebrate food heritage of Sheffield
- Plastic-free food offering
- Cook off
- Volunteer recruitment
- Learning from people with different lived experiences.