Birmingham wins prestigious national award for innovative food partnership
Birmingham has won a prestigious Sustainable Food Places Silver Award.
The award is in recognition of Birmingham's groundbreaking partnership working to promote healthy, sustainable and local food, tackle food poverty and diet-related ill-health, and support local growers and independent food retailers.
The Sustainable Food Places Silver Award is national, evidence-based recognition and celebration of Birmingham engaging in UK wide best practice for a joined-up, citizen led approach to good food for all. The accolade was awarded for the innovative work delivered through the Birmingham Food Revolution and Birmingham Food System Partnership.
Judges praised Birmingham for its ‘exceptional and ambitious submission that clearly meets, and in many areas exceeds the Silver benchmark’, noting the ‘remarkable breadth of action’ underpinned by the alignment between the Birmingham Food System Strategy and the city’s wider Route to Net Zero and health equity agendas.
Acknowledging Birmingham Public Health’s Food System team, the judges said: “The partnership’s work shows how a well-resourced, embedded food team can drive systems change at a scale rarely seen in the UK.”
Birmingham is well placed to build on its ‘outstanding’ foundation by continuing to strengthen its partnership working and using its national visibility to influence policy and mentor other cities looking to embed food systems thinking into their own local governance, the judges concluded.
The Birmingham Food Revolution, under which the Birmingham Food System Partnership sits, has more than 200 members, including third sector organisations, the health sector, academics, businesses, citizens, local authority councillors and officers, growers and food producers, and West Midlands-focused organisations. Recent initiatives have covered topics such as diverse healthy and sustainable eating guidance, grassroots community food project grants, and the Full of Beans campaign, which aims to increase the amount of beans and pulses eaten in schools, in families, and in food businesses.
Councillor Mariam Khan, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care at Birmingham City Council, who also chairs Birmingham Food System Partnership meetings, said: “The Birmingham Food Revolution is about authentic, collaborative working with people across a wide range of sectors, and having diverse perspectives involved throughout to ensure we end up with impactful, innovative and practical initiatives that make a real difference, as well as meeting the needs of our citizens.
“I am absolutely delighted that this crucial work has been recognised with this prestigious award. It is a testament to the commitment and passion of every member of the partnership, without whom this work would simply not be possible.”
Leon Ballin, Sustainable Food Places Programme Manager, said: “Birmingham has shown just what can be achieved when creative and committed people work together to make healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where they live. The Birmingham Food Revolution has helped to set a national benchmark for other members of the UK Sustainable Food Places Network to follow. We look forward to working with them over the months and years ahead to continue to transform Birmingham’s food culture and food system for the better.”
Additional information
The Sustainable Food Places programme is a partnership between the Soil Association, Food Matters and Sustain. It is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the National Lottery Community Fund and supports places to transform food culture.
An SFP Silver Award demonstrates a there is particularly diverse, robust, and sustainable cross-sector food partnership is in place with strategic long-term plans. These include a range of local authority policies and food access initiatives as well as effective promotion and access to sustainable and healthy food for all. Also evidenced is a diverse and connected local good food movement. Sustainable food enterprises have a significant role in your local economy, backed by local catering and procurement practices and systemic responses are addressing the negative climate and nature impacts of the local food system.
For more information about Sustainable Food Places, please visit www.sustainablefoodplaces.org
