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An ambitious, 5-year plan to support local food producers, reduce waste, tackle food poverty, boost food growing and give all Brighton residents access to healthy and nutritious meals.
Led by Brighton and Hove Food Partnership and overseen by a panel of food experts, the updated Brighton and Hove Food Strategy Action Plan sets out how organisations will work together to create a ‘healthy, sustainable and fair food system’ for Brighton and Hove.
We celebrated all the great work happening in Brighton and Hove and how the city has become a beacon for tackling issues such as diet-related health, food poverty and food waste.
We heard from local businesses who have promoted and championed local food, changed their operations to become more sustainable and worked with the surplus food network to ‘feed bellies not bins’.
At the launch event we asked participants to get together and think about ways they could support the food strategy and we had some great pledges.
A priority action which captured people’s imagination is a ‘whole school approach to food’. A good school food culture helps children develop healthy eating habits so they can live healthier, longer lives. At the launch event, parents pledged to support this work by getting involved in their child’s school and we had some exciting offers from Kindly of Brighton and Littletums to sponsor school vegetable gardens and a cookery course.
Another action of the strategy is to develop a local, regenerative food system. Over a delicious, locally-sourced lunch provided by chefs Diego and Viki, food buyers explored ways to support our local food producers and suppliers. As well as giving people great quality, sustainable food, farmers and producers get a fair price and more money stays in the local economy. A win-win!
Others pledges made were to reduce and recycle food waste, host networking events, provide space to grow more food within the city and enable staff to volunteer for community food projects. Conversations and ideas are continuing. Watch this space!
Here are some actions businesses and individuals can take to support the food strategy and our vision for healthy, sustainable, fair food for all.
How to take action
Want to do something as a local resident, restaurant worker or business? We’ve highlighted the top things from the strategy that will make a difference:
Actions for residents:
- Reduce your meat and dairy consumption.
Try our vegan and plant based recipes - Cook more from scratch, use up your leftovers and perfect your portion sizes.
Challenge yourself with our tips for reducing food waste, from beginner to expert level. - Buy local, seasonal and Fairtrade food.
Browse our local, organic & ethical food stockist. - Reduce single use plastics and sign up to plasticfreepledge.com.
Read our helpful list of where to buy plastic free. - Compost your food waste at home or sign up to a community compost scheme.
Check out our community composting FAQ. - Swap sugary food and drinks for healthier alternatives.
Come to our Community Kitchen Classes and let our chefs inspire you.
Actions for restaurants and businesses:
- Flip the menu order to read vegetarian, fish, meat
- Buy seasonal and support the Sussex Six campaign
- Offer small portion sizes and ‘doggy bags’
- Evaluate your practices with the Sustainability Toolkit
- Reduce single use plastics and sign up to plasticfreepledge.com
- Support your local community food project
These are some suggestions, but we’d love to hear your ideas too. Email us at info@bhfood.org.uk
Initiatives already making a difference include:
- The ‘Taste Ed’ programme, piloted in early years settings is increasing children’s consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables.
- Primary school meals have reduced meat by 25% and introduced 2 portion sizes to reduce waste.
- Brighton & Hove Food Partnership’s Community Kitchen has provided more than 1,000 community cookery sessions for people in need
- The City Downland Estate Plan is encouraging regenerative farming practices to increase soil health and biodiversity, cut carbon emissions and food miles.
- The University of Brighton and Restaurants Brighton developed ‘The Restaurant Sustainability Toolkit’ to encourage food businesses to improve their environmental sustainability.
- There are now 55 community composting schemes serving 1,300 households, turning 187 tonnes of food waste into high quality compost for local food growing.
Now, more than ever, we must work together to achieve a more localised, equitable and resilient food system. One that is good for our health, our planet and our local economy.
Find out more about the many strands of our food strategy work
