Fair Food Futures: tackling food insecurity through local food provision

Across the country the community food sector is growing, with a focus on supplying affordable food to their local area, supporting those experiencing food insecurity and bringing the community together. These include food banks, pantries and social supermarkets, food coops, community cafés, food growing projects, meal services and other local buying groups.

Fair Food Futures UK is a research project working to understand the role of community food organisations or 'assets' in the UK, to map the breadth of support on offer, and identify what people find most useful. The team is made up of researchers from from University of York, University College London (UCL) and the Bradford Institute for Health Research, as well as people who have experienced food insecurity and staff from Bradford and Tower Hamlets Councils. The project is funded by NIHR. 

To better understand and map the sector, the Fair Food Futures team carried out a survey of organisations, systems mapping workshops with staff and service users and interviews with stakeholders, including Sustain.

Following the first phase of research in Tower Hamlets, London and Bradford, Fair Food Futures UK have released a policy briefing and full report, highlighting the scale and diversity of the sector and the challenges and uncertainties in the sector. The team make short and long term recommendations to local authorities and community food organisations for supporting the sector based on learnings on addressing food insecurity through different models of support.

To find out more about community food organisations, and to access our case studies and toolkit to support sustainable financial development, visit our Connecting Community Food Enterprises website.

Read the full report

Read the policy briefing