This work is a culmination of two years’ research and consultation with food supply chain stakeholders working at place-based, nations and UK-wide scales.
The Plan outlines a framework of actions for local and mayoral authorities, national governments and food and farming organisations to grow local and agroecological food supply chains.
One of the challenges to growing local food systems is that they’re so diverse. It’s vital we define them in a way that leaves space for that diversity, while being clear about the types of systems we’d like to see.
With that in mind, we set out at the beginning of the project to examine the definitions of local food that people currently work with. This has helped guide our exploration of what matters to the local food sector, how we can monitor change and, most importantly, where we want to get to.
The review was conducted in the first year of the Local Food Plan project - Spring 23 - Spring 24. It brought together knowledge from across the sector, to discover where we are, and what needs to happen next in order for local food to thrive.
We interviewed 44 people working on the frontline of food. We spoke to farmers, wholesalers, retailers, buyers and many more across our four nations.
Our aim was to understand our collective vision for local food, the barriers preventing its growth and the solutions we need to see the sector thrive.
You can find out more details on the situational review in our report.
Growing the Local Food Sector report
If you’d like to find out more about the situational review, you can visit our ‘findings’ page.
The next step in creating the Local Food Plan was to further develop the solutions uncovered by the sector snapshot review with stakeholders across the UK throughout 2024.
We consulted experts and ran collaborative workshops to unpack, strengthen and fine-tune the suggested actions and recommendations.
In all we consulted over 160 supply chain stakeholders via workshops and one to one interviews, as well as the Local Food Working Party, convened by Sustain, representing food and farming organisations working on supply chain themes across the UK.
From the insights gained, we developed a solutions-focused Local Food Growth Plan, laying out the steps that need to be taken, how they can be achieved, and by whom.
This plan can be used by stakeholders across the food sector, as well those in local and national government, investors, researchers to help us get local, nourishing food to more people.
The Local Food Growth Plan is a rich source of recommendations on policy, infrastructure, marketing and campaigns, operations and skills, as well as sector collaboration. We have also identified seven cross-cutting key priorities for action that are crucial to achieving our shared vision, focusing on areas where clear and timely opportunities for progress already exist. We hope these will act as timely rallying points, enabling key players to come together to collaborate and build momentum.
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