Katerina Psarikidou, Shelley Taylor, Maria Roughton, Nikki Dowbiggin-Lamb & Sophia Martin
With a growing part of UK population experiencing food inequalities, transforming the UK food system constitutes a key imperative demanding urgent policy action. However, how can we make sure that policies speak to local community lives and needs?
We have been working with local residents, community researchers and the University of Sussex to produce this powerful policy brief on food system change. Our organisations joined forces to deliver community policy workshops in October 2023 in two high deprivation areas of Brighton and Hove, asking local people’s views on their ideal food futures and changes that need to happen to get there.
This work is part of a 5 year Food Systems Equality Project, funded by UK Research and Innovation. The brief is a valuable tool for direct communication with policy and decision makers and will be shared and discussed at a local and national level. It points to policy areas and changes that people identified as important for a meaningful food system change. By doing so, it also underlines the significance of attending to local people’s voices in order to achieve more impactful as well as more inclusive policy making, and the need for developing appropriate methods for supporting that.
Key findings:
- People care about their food and the environment, and want a better food future for themselves and their children.
- People want to be included in discussions about the food system and policy changes: they want to see more focus groups like those we had!
- School food and education (whole school approach) is very important to people, in terms of immediate change needed and a hope for reducing food inequalities.
- Changes in food advertising, labelling and processed foods formulation are also important for people for a more transparent food system.
For more information, contact Shelley Taylor at shelley@bhfood.bozboz.dev
