One of the areas of my new role I’m most looking forward to is setting up a food alliance (or partnership) covering Cheshire East. These partnerships are now common place – locally both Cheshire West and Chester and Warrington have one – with around a further 80 covering the length a breadth of the UK.
All networks are made up of a coalition of cross-sector, cross discipline organisations representing community groups, Charities, local government, health, housing trusts, as well as retailers, wholesalers and food producers (including horticulture). In the main their key role is to develop a ‘Right to Food’ strategy – to address food insecurity in their area.
We will follow a similar approach in Cheshire East (why reinvent the wheel – it’s a proven approach!). Where we will differ is that our strategy will be specific to the needs of our communities.
We’re aiming to launch the Alliance in the Autum (probably October time) before then we’re looking for people to help us develop the vision and aims of our ‘Right to Food’ strategy. If you’re interested, please see the ‘How to get involved’ section below.
The Alliance will: provide support for individual members – for example - setting up a new food pantry; work as a regional network – providing access to training, or events – that all members can benefit from; act as a local Champion for food related issues and work with other Cheshire based groups (and beyond) - where advantageous.
Lobby and influencing
One of the additional roles the Alliance will play will be to lobby and influence Cheshire East Council and others to ensure local steps can be taken to support our communities. Influencing at a local level won’t be enough. We will also need a national voice.
I’m glad to announce that we’ve taken a step towards facilitating this by joining the Feeding Britain network. They focus on preventing food insecurity by increasing access to good quality affordable food and addressing the wider issues that are making people at risk of hunger. This is achieved through practical action with research and evaluation and policy reform. One of their roles is to propose to government and national community sector partners - locally tried and tested, evidence informed alternative strategies, policies and practices that reduce social inequality and prevent people experiencing food insecurity.
So, in our view membership of Feeding Britain will give us a stronger and louder voice, as well providing a platform for the great work going on across Cheshire East to be highlighted.
Working collaboratively isn’t a new thing!
Recent research by The Trussell Trust highlights the importance of providing additional support services – in addition to food aid – as a means of alleviating food insecurity. In Crewe, there are excellent examples of where Chance Saving Lives and their partners are delivering such an approach.
Cheshire East Councils Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) on Poverty sets out the aspiration to increase the use of surplus food as a potential means to of alleviating food insecurity. Many of the community food projects across our area who currently use surplus food will be aware of the challenges of this approach. Only by working in partnership with the likes of FareShare (they quote research by WWF that suggest 2.9m tonnes of edible food is wasted in horticulture and agriculture alone – that’s the equivalent of 6.9 billion meals) and Feeding Britain nationally, and directly with producers, growers / farmers , wholesalers and retailers – so across the whole food supply chain – locally will this be realised. This is a great example of how working together we can achieve more!
