Our strategic aspirations
The Birmingham Food System Strategy has committed a workstream objective to food security and resilience, and to embedding food justice across all workstreams. We have set goals that will shape the Food System Strategy Action Plan over the next 8 years.
Talking about food poverty
Through our citywide partnerships, we focus on the reality of food poverty and work to reduce the stigma and isolation that come with being unable to feed yourself or your family.
Mitigating food poverty
We use evidence-based approaches to increase awareness and projects across Birmingham, such as:
- Healthy Start vouchers
- networks such as Food Justice Network and Growing Network
- community projects
We also:
- support knowledge, skills, and access to projects that allow people on low incomes to eat healthy, delicious diets
- identify what causes unaffordable food across Birmingham
- develop evidence-based solutions to create affordable food businesses and increase the number of healthy, affordable options available
Reducing food poverty
We continue to work towards becoming a Living Wage City and, on a national level, influence the welfare and employment practices that lead to food poverty.
Becoming a food-resilient city
We plan to use our global city position to collaborate and influence regional, national, and international policy to increase the food security of cities vulnerable to disruptions in the global food supply chain.
We follow the 3Rs framework on resilience building proposed by the Food System Transformation Group at the University of Oxford in 2022.
This includes introducing actions that promise:
- robustness in Birmingham's food system, so it is able to resist disruption
- recovery by mobilising action when required
- re-orientation by restructuring supply chains and policies
Read more about our food security and resilience workstream objective and the wider Birmingham Food System Strategy.
You can read about some of the work we have already done to move towards these aspirations by visiting Increasing Food Provision Capacity in Birmingham.
Page last updated: 31 October 2025
