Gateshead Council Gateshead Food Partnership
Gateshead Food Partnership is a collaboration of organisations looking at a joined up, whole system approach to make nutritious, culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable food affordable and accessible for everyone in Gateshead. The partnership of public, voluntary and private sector organisations is working to become a Sustainable Food Place, co-creating and delivering a sustainable food strategy for Gateshead.
We seek to:
tackle food insecurity in Gateshead. Ensure everyone has access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food, moving from reliance on food aid to food justice and resilience
tackle issues around diet-related health inequality, especially in relation to food insecurity
build community food knowledge, skills, resources and projects aimed at re-connecting with and valuing our food
promote a vibrant and diverse local food economy that provides sustainable, healthy and affordable choices for consumers, creates good quality employment and makes the best use of local resources
increase healthy and sustainable catering and procurement to help create a resilient, fair, food system
UKSPF funding has enabled the recruitment of a coordinator to facilitate the development of Gateshead Food Partnership. Since January, connections have been made with 106 individuals from 78 voluntary and community organisations, 4 businesses, and many more colleagues in council and public health teams, working to gather momentum, ideas and establish relationships. A newsletter has been shared with this list every month, including offers of support, funding opportunities, requests from those in the network, minutes of meetings, invitations to events, and useful links related to food system transformation.
A regular series of meetings have been organised with different themes relating to food in Gateshead, hosted and catered by VCSE partner organisations. Over 40 attended the first, about food redistribution, resulting in organisations successfully sharing food and resources every week via a WhatsApp group, organisations being connected with a large food retailer willing to donate surplus and cost-price stock, and development of a food waste-saving schools project in Gateshead.
March's event gathered organisations involved with teaching cooking skills, sharing tips and ideas to equip them to run more activities, more effectively. April's event was titled 'Food insecurity: re-imagining our response'. 49 attendees had important discussions about how the voluntary sector can respond to the harsh realities of food poverty in our local area, building capacity to reduce the need for emergency food support.
Community food project grants are now open for expressions of interest, with UKSPF funding. We expect to award grants of between £500 and £5,000, although larger amounts may be considered. We are encouraging organisations to think strategically, think 'outside of the box', using it as an opportunity to pilot new creative approaches. We want to use this opportunity to share learning with others in the food partnership network and build a joined-up approach to tacking food insecurity. Gateshead Food Partnership will work collaboratively with organisations to maximise the impact of this funding, for a sustainable, long-term approach to community food resilience.
Next steps
Gateshead Food Charter and Action Plan is being developed by the steering group, with an application to Sustainable Food Places.
A Food Summit event took place on Wednesday 3 July, at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art where there was a day of speakers, discussions, stalls and food from local organisations.
A communications plan, aiming to build the Food Partnership network, maintain momentum and aid connections and partnership working, includes building a website, social media pages, and press communications around events.
Work with the Business, Employment and Skills team to explore ways to connect with local businesses. JR Holland have been receptive and already very helpful since the Food Redistribution meeting, sharing surplus stock and offering wholesale items at cost-price. Work has begun to set up a 'Food Hub', including bulk-buying to a central location stock items that VCSE organisations often have to purchase. An electric van and part-time driver will be employed to collect and distribute food.
Contact:
Project contact: Nikki Dravers
Email: nikkidravers@gateshead.gov.uk
Phone: 07513 484 914
Website: Gateshead Council