About Us

Key Issue 1: Taking a strategic and collaborative approach to good food governance and action

Objectives 

1A) Establish a strong, representative partnership that delivers actions across all key food issues. 

1A) The partnership is open and transparent and has clear terms of reference. 

1A) Key institutions, including the local authority and other strategic bodies recognise and endorse the local food partnership and actively support its efforts through policy, strategy and planning, and by providing funding and/or other support. 

1A) Establish working groups linked to the core food partnership to enable those with specific interests, skills and remits to lead on and work together to tackle key food issues. 

1B) Develop, publish and review a food strategy and action plan. 

1B) The food strategy action plan is being delivered. 

1B) Develop and promote a food charter. 

1B) Develop and promote a Food Durham identity. 

Key Issue 2: Building public awareness, active food citizenship and a local good food movement

Objectives 

2A) Raise awareness of good food through communication. 

2A) Provide free opportunities for people to learn about, share and enjoy healthy and sustainable food. 

2A) Provide training and volunteering opportunities around food growing, cooking, processing and enterprise. 

2A) Ensure opportunities to actively participate in community food initiatives are promoted to people from all social and cultural backgrounds 

2A) Develop a public-facing umbrella campaign to encourage individuals and organisations to take (and register) action in support of healthy and sustainable food. 

2B) Establish a network for community food initiatives and leaders. 

2B) Support communities to access and take control of land, infrastructure and other community assets that can be used for food social enterprises and community food projects. 

2B) Support community food initiatives. 

2B) Increase participation in food growing and related activities 

Key Issue 3: Tackling food poverty and diet related ill-health and increasing access to affordable healthy food

Objectives 

3A) Establish a multi-agency partnership involving key organisations as well as people with lived experience, to identify and tackle the full range of issues that contribute to food poverty in a joined-up strategic way. 

3A) Ensure high quality social food provision for people who otherwise might go hungry or suffer malnutrition. 

3A) Promote fair wages through local authority adoption of the real Living Wage for its staff and contractors and raise awareness with other employers. 

3A) Train health professional, welfare advisers, housing and voluntary organisations in food poverty issues so they can effectively direct those experiencing food poverty. 

3A) Food access providers design and deliver their work in ways that uphold the dignity of service users. 

3B) Run healthy eating campaigns. 

3B) Provide and promote a wide range of healthy eating and healthy weight support services and initiatives. 

3B) Promote the adoption of holistic healthy food culture transformation programmes in a range of settings. 

3B) Map access to healthy food. 

Key Issue 4: Creating a vibrant, prosperous, and diverse sustainable food economy

Objectives 

4A) Retail, tourism, planning and economic development strategies, policies and services actively support the development and long-term success of healthy and sustainable food businesses and a circular economy. 

4A) Protect and/or re-establish vital sustainable food infrastructure to support shorter and value-based supply chains. 

4A) Protect council farms and ensure they are used for sustainable food production and sustainable enterprises. 

4A) Support farmers, retailers and other entrepreneurs. 

4A) Work to improve the diversity of the retail offer by supporting more independent retailers and market stalls and more value-based retail. 

4B) Link consumers and producers through online directory of good food businesses. 

4B) Promote local good food to the public using a range of communication tools. 

4B) Promote greater consumer spending in local independent and sustainable food businesses through local currency, loyalty schemes and promotional campaigns. 

4B) Provide local producers with increased opportunities to promote and sell their produce directly to consumers. 

Key Issue 5: Transforming catering and procurement and revitalising local and sustainable food supply chains

Objectives 

5A) Council develops and formally adopts a sustainable food procurement policy and strategy. 

5A) Public sector bodies adopt healthy and sustainable food policies. 

5A) Public sector organisations and large private caterers achieve recognised healthy, sustainable and ethical food accreditation. 

5A) Restaurants and other small-scale catering outlets improve their food offering as part of national accreditation schemes. 

5B) Establish a local cross-sector sustainable food procurement group or equivalent forum. 

5B) Enable procurement officers and catering businesses to source more of their ingredients from local and sustainable producers and processors. 

5B) Enable small-scale local producers and other sustainable food businesses to better access large scale procurement markets. 

5B) Work with procurement and supply stakeholders over a larger geographic region to develop a more strategic approach. 

Key Issue 6: Tackling the climate and nature emergency through sustainable food & farming and an end to food waste

Objectives 

6A) Declare a climate and nature emergency to reduce the climate and nature impact of the food system. 

6A) Develop and deliver a land use and management strategy that protects, enhances, and makes available land for both community growing and commercial sustainable agriculture. 

6A) Protect county/council farms and ensure they are used for sustainable food production and sustainable enterprise development. 

6A) Provide farmers, growers and land managers with training, advice and support on how to adopt agroecological production and management techniques. 

6A) Provide food businesses with support to improve resource efficiency and sustainability across all aspects of their business. 

6A) Deliver place-wide campaigns to promote a mainstream shift to sustainable agriculture. 

6A) Use planning policy to protect food production and consumption. 

6A) Assess the impact of intensive agriculture in the area against the targets set out in the Environment Act and Water Framework Directive, and work towards placing a moratorium on new intensive industrial animal farming. 

6B) Publish a council-wide food use strategy to minimise food waste according to the food waste hierarchy. 

6B) Establish a food waste collection  scheme for homes and businesses that redirects food and food-related waste for composting, energy recovery (AD) and animal feed (where permitted). 

6B) Promote community composting through the provision of resources and sites for communities to use.  

6B) Provide a network of publicly accessible water fountains. 

6B) Ensure the effective collection of consumable surplus food from all stages of the supply chain, from farm to retail, and redistribute it organisations providing good quality food support for people in need. 

Reduce plastic and packaging waste.