Report from the seminar on the development of sustainable food infrastructure

SUSTAINABLE FOOD SEMINAR
9th February 2005 at the King's Fund, London
Funded by: COBB CHARITY, CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN FOUNDATION, LONDON DEVELOPMENT AGENCY, KING'S FUND, SOIL ASSOCIATION and DEFRA.

1. WELCOME ADDRESS BY JENNY JONES, MEMBER OF LONDON ASSEMBLEY (GREEN PARTY) AND CHAIR OF LONDON FOOD BOARD.

Jenny welcomed delegates and outlined the challenges ahead to develop a food system in London which reduced the environmental impact of the current system, which improved the prospects of poor citizens to buy wholesome and affordable food, and which helped to increase London's food security.

The London Food Board, reporting to the Mayor, is developing a Strategy for Sustainable Food and Farming for London and commissioning research and projects, including this one on food infrastructure co-ordinated by Sustain. The strategy is to be radical in its approach to making the city's food system more sustainable. Jenny's points included:

• The central task for London Food Board has been to develop sustainable food and farming strategy for London
• Political climate fertile to adopt this strategy: support of both the Assembly and the Mayor and work is underway to develop local food procurement strategies within public bodies
• We need to be thinking about our consumption patterns and their effect on food security
• London is a city of huge contrast – almost half the children in inner city east London live below the poverty line – this has obvious connections to crime and food access must be considered within this
• London Food Board has been discussing having four or five centres on the periphery of London
• If London can get it right there are implications for the rest of the country



2. PRESENTATIONS

(i) Introduction to Sustain and context setting for the food centre work by Dan Keech (Please follow link at bottom of the page to view Dan's powerpoint presentation)

(ii) Developing a vision for a sustainable food centre in London by Professor John Whitelegg (Please follow link at the bottom of the page to view John's powerpoint presentation)



3. DISCUSSION FOLLOWING THE PRESENTATIONS


ALAN BEN (London Food Centre)
Need to be aware of the possible problem with naming the envisaged sustainable food centre, given the name of Alan's own organisation. Reducing food miles is an admirable aim but must recognise that food factories supplying food into London from further afield will have traceability and accreditation procedures to ensure food safety. There should be no compromise on this.


TARA GARNETT (Food Climate Research Network)
Tara questioned the methods for calculating the Life Cycle Analysis environmental benefits of regional food chains as attributed in JW's talk to the Technical University Munich. JW reflected that some assumptions were made about replacing imported food with locally produced food and agreed with TG that if the benefits would be much smaller if the regional supply system was simply based on the proliferation of food transport and consumer transactions. Regional food production and distribution systems are not always lower carbon systems than non-regional


GERARD BURGESS (Greater London Authority, London Plan team)
Gerard felt the stated focus of the sustainable food centre might resonate well with some of the policies in the London Plan, especially those around social enterprise development, food access and reducing traffic. The London Plan also recognises the review of the wholesale markets in London  into three consolidated markets in East, West and Central London. These recommendations need to be assessed in the light of the proposal for a sustainable food centre. How can we make the best advantage of the synergies between Saphir recommendations and those that will emerge from John Whitelegg's proposals?

JW will look at the Saphir report. The sustainable food centre work will look at issues around how many and where centres should be and the possibility of supplying particular quadrants.


KRYS ZASADA (Head of Markets, Manchester City Council)
Krys reminded Gerard to be mindful that the Wholesale Markets Review was on passage through the House of Lords and that some big decisions were to be made on it. KZ also asked is face to face sales were envisaged at the sustainable food centre. JW thought not at this stage in the planning. There was possibly a need to support better working with existing enterprises before setting up new ones.


HONOR CHAPMAN CBE (Executive Chair, London Renaissance)
We need to involve farmers in the process. There are few left. While the Bavarian and the Booth's regional supermarket case studies were interesting, there are only around 250 full-time commercial farmers in Greater London, only about 20 of these farming aeas over 100 acres. JW agreed. The Bavarian model demonstrated a high level of commercial collaboration between farmers, which is to be encouraged here.


LUCY PARSONS (Project Finance Specialist)
Which agencies are looking at the relationship between the Common Agricultural Policy subsidy reforms and there effect on food supply. If farmers are now to be paid more in line with their role and managers of the countryside, rather than producers of food, would CAP reform discourage domestic food production? JW LP and HC to talk more on this.


CHERYL COHEN (London Farmers' Markets)
Shame not to imagine retailing happening at the sustainable food centre. It would serve farmers' market producers well to also have a wholesale opportunity within the centre, as well as processing opportunities for making pies etc to then sell at farmers' markets and other outlets.

We need to be careful in what we mean by 'quality'. CC would not consider food made from the types of ingredients that go into some low cost chicken nuggets, for example, however traceably sourced and produced according to food safety regulations to be the kind of quality the centre should be concerned with. Quality needs also to have integrity.


MICHAEL HOLMES (National Farmers' Union)
NFU's definition of local food is simply 'as near as you can get it'. In the UK Asda has one onion supplier and two carrot suppliers.

Do we know how much food is produced in London and how much is needed? [NO]. The NFU are exploring this in the Yorkshire/Humberside region. Do we know how much food schools and hospitals need. This would help. KZ replied that so many Local Education Authorities has now out-sourced catering that they will only know the number of meals they are buying, not the quantity of ingredients. LP reported that the army spends under $2 a day on feeding soldiers and quantities might be extrapolated out from such figures.

There should be no separation between local and organic food. JW agreed – we are not going to get hung-up on this. Some local food may not be organic, some organic food may be imported. Opportunities to optimise and integrate supply and movement of such food would be pragmatically explored.

There are many constraints to sustainable agriculture which may be social, family-based and fiscal. These need to be explored and adapted.


HENRY BROWN (Westley Consulting)
Henry has prepared a report on barriers to local food distribution in London for Sustain. This report can be viewed at www.sustainweb.org/news_detail.asp?iEve=101&iType=1081

The benefits of a sustainable food centre to the public sector seem plentiful and the government is clearly supportive of such work. However there needs to be greater consideration that present discussion has generated around buying and selling to commercial customers can work. JW admitted that it will be impossible to interview the 12,000 London restaurants to assess their needs.


RICHARD POOLE (Ethnic Minorities Enterprise Project)
Richard supports small family-run restaurants in East London, many based around Brick Lane. Such restaurants have established supply chains, often based on family our cultural allegiance. It will be difficult to break into these supply chains.

It may be desirable to influence and educate existing wholesale market traders on issues of sustainability and local sourcing.


DR VINOD BHANDARI (The Food Club/Business Link for London)
Vinod has long experience of working with start-up food businesses and working in third world countries. Concerned that the examples and case studies outlined so far have been geared towards retail and the public sector and discussion had not yet addressed the needs of other food businesses and has not been aligned to business operation. For example, the private sector will need to be attracted to the idea of a sustainable food centre in order to invest in it. The centre cannot thrive in the long-term on public subsidy alone. Furthermore advice such as tax breaks for research and development need to be identified and offered for participants.



3. REPORTS AND DISCUSSIONS FROM THE WORKSHOPS


Workshop 1 – Logistics (facilitated by Kiran Grover, Government Office for London and reported by Lucy Parsons)

• A range of food information systems already exist, such as those run by supermarkets and some restaurant groups, including the Paternoster group, represented in the workshop by Chef Peter Weedon.
• Price and service remain important factors for large buyers.
• The biggest opportunity for enhancement may be between wholesalers and producers rather than at the customer end.
• It might be possible to use existing systems but access secondary clients.

Questions/discussion:
VB asked if there had been discussions on the need for a knowledge centre. No discussion had turned around information systems.


Workshop 2 – The Centre (facilitated and reported by Mark Ainsbury, London Development Agency)

• Should the centre should be multifunctional or concentrate on one or two activities?
• Whom should it mainly serve – farmers? Should it follow demand rather than planning to support a particular sector?
• The centre shouldn't be realised if it simply duplicates existing facilities.
• Should processing be offered at the centre or would that be best done at the point of production?
• Should the food centre also be a centre of knowledge?
• Could the centre become a visible presence at wholesale markets – New Covent Garden, for example, is not yet at full capacity.
• Is a physical centre needed- could it be virtual, with and marketing and showcasing potential?

Questions/discussion:
MH noted that if the proposed centre were to geared at public sector food, it needed to be remembered that many newly constructed schools and hospitals are not including traditional cooking kitchens, but regeneration areas for reheating pre-prepared food.

Eric Samuel (Community Food Enterprise) wondered if we knew how much local food is coming into London. Influencing wholesale markets into trading local food may be tricky and some markets appear to run as a 'closed shop'. One of the difficulties in this respect, added HB, was that the supermarkets tend to dominate the supply chain and thus plenty of produce at wholesalers is imported. It was suggested that wholesalers are left with what the supermarkets don't need. DK outlined the work of the London Development Agency in trying to assess the food production capacity of Greater London and the destination of the produce (more details from Mark Ainsbury at the LDA)

JW: there is a need to be aware of the ecological footprint of London's food needs. The key focus in planning the centre would be how do we increase the amount of sustainable food consumed in London?* If there is simply an information deficit in this respect and the existing physical infrastructure could already support such an increase, then efforts could be concentrated in that direction.

LP was concerned that local food was possibly a trend. How can it be marketed to a wider audience? Following this question there was some discussion including an example of Cumbrian lamb, raised by KZ, entering the supply chain of Wetherspoon pubs in the north-east and north-west, (which was described positively but raised questions of transport, the quality – cf. CC's comments above - of the final meal and suitability for smaller or classier pubs). KZ emphasised that there were mechanisms and opportunities to connect the various elements of the supply chain to achieve sustainability. JW again raised Booth's regional supermarket and highlighted that the company traded in local food as a conscious business strategy. There was certainly potential for this to happen in other regions.

Doug Brown (The Food Club) felt the primary function of s sustainable food centre should be marketing.


Workshop 3 – Logistics (facilitated and reported by Zoe Wangler)

• The design of a transport system for the London Food Centre depends greatly on the final business plan: how many centres, customer base and facilities, etc.  
• Don't put the cart before the horse: first perform a detailed supply and demand mapping exercise and then look to design transport system
• Four centres placed strategically for road, rail and river connections preferred over a single centre as a means of reducing traffic through and around London
• Possibly borrow from retailers consolidation points model where small producers deliver to sites and from there their produce is consolidated and carried in larger vehicles
• Concern over the former point is the amount of food waste that is added to the equation each time food is handled
• Possible role for food centres to co-ordinate multiple company fleets both to and from centre
• Would such a co-ordination role be too difficult?  Would it require small producers to become paper-less in their administration?  What obstacles would low-tech operations pose for a centralised logistics team?
• How would the centre match demand and supply?  
• The centre could have a role of providing tasting of regional produce to encourage their use
• Centralised distribution is a huge selling point to organisations juggling multiple deliveries such as SME restaurants
• Building on the door to door milk delivery model and apply to restaurants: daily product electric vans would benefit restaurants as they could buy fresh, amounts they need and reduce storage space within their facilities as reliability grew
• Hybrid / electric vehicles welcomed but some expressed concerns about reliability of said vehicles
• Interest in the role of bicycles as a means to deliver at a local/small scale but concern about health implications for cyclist

Questions/discussion:
HB noted that the government is supportive of sustainable food entering the public sector but won't pay a proper price to support the changes required. DK agreed and felt that some issues such as budgets needed a policy/lobbying approach. HB warned that simply achieving an increase in public catering budgets may make the market even more attractive to larger suppliers and reinforce the status quo.
RP asked whether it would be fruitful to influence and work with large catering companies such as Sodexho around issues of sustainability. Katherine Quinteros (DEFRA Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative) said that DEFRA was already working on this.



4. CLOSING REMARKS BY DK AND JW

DK thanked delegates for attending, especially those who had taken time away from their businesses. He thanked the facilitators, Jenny Jones and the funders. A report of the seminar was to be available in a few days. DK pointed out that a number of other people had sent apologies for the day and that John was continuing to hold detailed interviews with more. Delegates will be contacted via email about the progress of the work.

JW added his own thanks. Issues which it seemed were still be to be addressed and strengthened included:

• How best to support farmers? – what about supply capacity?
• What exactly is the market for the proposed centre?
• What potential operational split could there be between supplying public and private sector markets?
• Are we treading on toes?
• Is a virtual centre which would concentrate on profile raising and marketing enough?
• Agendas are potentially in conflict. We need to do what we can to meet the objectives of the brief (see * above).
• Addressing policy is part of this work and an awareness of the bigger policy picture needs to be woven in. The synergies between policy areas need to be highlighted to maximise support.

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The Sustainable Food Chains project is grateful for the support of the COBB CHARITY, CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN FOUNDATION, LONDON DEVELOPMENT AGENCY, KING'S FUND, SOIL ASSOCIATION and DEFRA.
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