The Food Foundation’s annual Broken Plate report has given us the latest health check on the UK food system.
Sir Michael Marmot, food policy author, was guest for the online launch that revealed healthy foods now cost twice as much per calorie as unhealthy foods, one in four food places serves fast food and a third of food sector advertising promotes sweets, snacks, desserts and soft drinks.
It was also revealed that Britain’s poorest 20 per cent would now need to spend half their income on food to afford the government’s Eat Well plate. Added to rising obesity rates, newly released stats also showed how Britain is dropping in childhood height, a clear indicator of inequality in nutrition.
The Broken Plate report uses eight key metrics to show the challenge of healthy eating compared with the cost, availability and appeal of unhealthy and unsustainable food.
For the second year running, we took a deep dive into the food system. This time it was at Loughborough University with 130 guests and speakers.
In the morning we looked at Long Clawson Dairy’s on-farm sustainability work, heard Enva’s slack-jawing food waste stats, and learned about food systems from Oxford University’s BeanMeals project (including a performance from three starlets from Greystoke Primary in Narborough).
Right before lunch we had a panel discussion on strengthening the local food action plan, while others had a tour of Fruit Routes, the university’s tree-lined edible campus, and the students’ gardening site.
In the afternoon, we had four workshops looking at Sustain’s Bridging the Gap initiative with Incredible Edible Loughborough, healthy diets from sustainable food systems with Oxford University and Brooksby campus SMB College Group, food waste interventions with our county council colleagues and Enva and more on BeanMeals.
So far we’ve had some great feedback and believe some good connections were made during the event.
Sustainable Food Places Day of Celebration and Action
Gavin Fletcher, Leicestershire Sustainable Food Partnership Coordinator at Leicestershire County Council, joined more than 90 food partnership leaders from across the country last month to meet MPs and their representatives at London's Portcullis House.
As part of Sustain's Day of Celebration and Action, the meet up provided the opportunity to call for greater investment in local food, nature-friendly farming and access to healthy food for all.
As one of eight speakers, Gavin focused on the work of BeanMeals, a multi-partner initiative involving the county to unite nutritious UK grown beans with UK consumers.
The day was designed to chart national and local action towards a better food future in perceived absence of policy and strategy in England.
Higher nutrition UK grown beans have been the stars of meals at six city and county primary schools as part of the University of Oxford’s BeanMeals project.
These beans have been growing at Warwick Crop Centre – and Good Food Leicestershire (GFL) and the BeanMeals crew, crossed the border to receive the project’s latest updates and see their literal field work.
Professor Eric Holub, the man responsible for the beans tweaked for the UK climate, took us to see the beans, some of which were now being grown in a polyculture with black oats.
Billy Allingham is better known as the head of Steamin’ Billy Brewery, and the person who runs the Stoughton Grange rural centre, with its farm shop, deli, restaurant, farm park, glamping site and pub.
Billy is a champion of the farm to fork approach and it's why Visit Leicester set up its Taste The Place Food For Thought tourism showcase here, just three miles into east Leicestershire countryside.
Mr Allingham was among the evening’s speakers and spoke of his ambition to increase the sourcing of Leicestershire food. On the night, Rachel Gillis of Visit England spoke about sustainable tourism and Matt Wright of the Great Food Club told guests about great county produce.
Billy and Stoughton Grange will soon feature in Six Inches of Soil, a film exploring farming, nature and climate change.
Leicestershire County Council is now the 76th local anti-hunger partner in the Feeding Britain network.
GFL was on a call with Feeding Britain director Andrew Forsey and Rose Bray, project manager, to look at measures to improve food security in the county.
The Feeding Britain charity connects and supports affordable food clubs. It also maps poverty and its drivers and delivers its findings to MPs and right now is pushing the NHS Healthy Start take up bill. The England average uptake is currently 65%.
Sheffield has shown its steel by uniting 100 city organisations to create their local food plan 2023 to 2033. It’s ambitious, far-reaching and with an impressive step by step approach. You too will be excited.
And finally, some incredible news from Leicestershire’s Food for Life (FfL) team…the county now has more than half of the UK’s highest standard gold awards.
Take a bow Arnesby C of E Primary School, Sir John Moore C of E Primary School (Appleby Magna), Thorpe Acre Infant School (Loughborough) and Westfield Infant School (Hinckley).
Co-ordinated by the Soil Association and led by Raksha Mistry, the FfL scheme supports schools to grow food and cook it.
The gold standard recognises that 75 per cent of their school food is seasonal and prepared from scratch, with the school also engaging parents and the public in their cooking and growing.
“It’s amazing working with schools in Leicestershire and especially seeing teachers embracing the FfL awards programme to transform schools’ food culture,” said Raksha.
