The city of Cardiff has been awarded Silver Sustainable Food Places status – becoming the first place in Wales (and one of only six places in the UK) to achieve the prestigious accolade, which recognises pioneering work in promoting healthy and sustainable food.
Cardiff, along with Cambridge, have both been newly awarded Silver status, joining Middlesbrough; the Greater London Authority; Bristol and Brighton & Hove in achieving a Silver Sustainable Food Places award. Brighton & Hove and Bristol have since gone on to achieve Gold status, with hopes that Cardiff will follow suit in future.
What is the Sustainable Food Places Award Scheme?
The Sustainable Food Places Award Scheme recognises the most sustainable food places in the UK, and is based on achievements across six key issues:
1. Taking a strategic and collaborative approach to good food governance and action.
2. Building public awareness, active food citizenship and a local good food movement.
3. Tackling food poverty, diet related ill-health and access to affordable healthy food.
4. Creating a vibrant, prosperous and diverse sustainable food economy.
5. Transforming catering and procurement and revitalizing local and sustainable food supply chains.
6. Tackling the climate and nature emergency through sustainable food and farming and an end to food waste.
The work in Cardiff is co-ordinated by Food Cardiff, the city’s rapidly growing food partnership which has evolved into a dynamic, strong and inclusive network of good food activists. Food Cardiff, which is hosted by Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team, now includes 127 individuals across 74 organisations and has a strategy board that includes a range of members, including Cardiff Council, Cardiff & Vale University Health Board, Wrap Cymru, Riverside Real Food, Public Health Wales, Action in Caerau and Ely as well as many others.
Through this network of dedicated partners, Cardiff is driving change at a city level and is working to tackle some of today’s biggest social, economic and environmental issues.
“A Shining Example”
Tom Andrews from Sustainable Food Places said: “Since joining the Sustainable Food Places Network as a founding member nearly 10 years ago, Food Cardiff has continuously raised the bar on healthy and sustainable food. From the ground-breaking School Holiday Enrichment Programme to the Pantry initiative and Cardiff Growing Together, Cardiff has been an inspirational pioneer and leading light on good food not just in Wales but across the UK. Food Cardiff, the Council and the myriad of organisations and individuals that are part of the City’s good food movement are a shining example of just what can be achieved when passionate and committed people work together to make healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where they live.”
Cardiff Council was instrumental in the establishment of Cardiff’s food partnership. Cllr Huw Thomas, Leader of Cardiff Council (pictured up top) is delighted that the city’s efforts and ambitions have been recognised.
“If you look at the work that’s been done across the Food Cardiff partnership to change our food systems and deliver healthy, ethical and sustainable food for the people of Cardiff, it really is remarkable how much has been achieved since 2018, when we launched our commitment to achieving Silver, and ultimately Gold status for the city,” he said.
“In the three years since then, Cardiff Council has become the first local authority in the UK to approve its own Council-wide Food Strategy, we’ve also included ambitious and sustainable food actions within our One Planet Cardiff strategy responding to the climate emergency, and have supported practical projects such as growing 20,000 veg plants for community groups during the Covid pandemic – and that’s just our part of the journey.”
Pearl Costello, Food Cardiff’s co-ordinator (pictured above) said “This award is a testament to the huge movement we’ve seen from citizens, groups, businesses and institutions to make healthy and sustainable food the norm, for everyone, in Cardiff. It’s an award that can be attributed to families growing cress on the windowsill for the first time; neighbourhoods setting up food co-ops or pantries; institutions making Veg Cities pledges and designing sustainable menus, and to everybody who has done something positive around food.”
To find out more about the Food Cardiff network, visit https://foodcardiff.com.
