Pledge an action to put Plymouth's Best Food Forward

Let’s put Plymouth’s Best Food Forward together

Ready to join Plymouth’s Good Food Movement and take action as an enterprise, organisation, community group or individual? Now’s the time to pledge action and help put Plymouth’s Best Food Forward as a truly Sustainable Food Place that works for people and planet. Everyone can play a part and your action(s) could be all sorts of things. Here are a few examples to give you a flavour…

What you could do: ideas to get you started

As an individual:

  • Have a go at grow-your-own veg (you can start with just a windowsill) and using the Harvest-ometer tool from Good to Grow to calculate  a money value, meal value and carbon value from your harvest
  • Buy Fairtrade produce whenever you can – check out this list from Fairtrade Foundation for starters
  • Turn your food waste into beautiful compost with help from the Generous Earth network of community composters
  • Start a food co-operative with your neighbours to bulk buy food together, save money and make new connections

As an organisation:

  • Prioritise procurement that champions food grown and produced locally and sustainably – for inspiration and ideas read about how the University of Plymouth is already doing this in the city
  • Become a Real Living Wage Employer, helping your employees to afford good quality, healthy food through fair pay for all
  • Be part of the Sugar Smart and Veg Cities campaigns in Plymouth

As a food enterprise:

By pledging your action, it will form part of a growing collection showcasing the exciting ways that Plymouth communities, businesses and institutions are making positive changes to our local food system. We can’t wait to hear from you.

 

Pledge your Best Food Forward action now!

Flashback to the Plymouth Food Charter

Still stuck for inspiration? Here’s a throwback to some earlier examples of how organisations and enterprises took action on food from the time of the Plymouth Food Charter in 2011.

National Trust

The National trust has recently been awarded the Soil association Bronze food for life award, this means that 75% of the dishes served by us at Saltram are made by us, from scratch. The meat we use can be traced back to the farm, every egg we use is free range and our menus are free from GM ingredients and undesirable additives. Our menus are designed to make use of the best seasonal local ingredients. More info on this award is available here

Owens Coffee

“We are a coffee roaster based in Ivybridge, producing award winning 100% organic and fair-trade coffee since 2010.  All of Owens coffee is roasted to order and we are meticulous about the freshness, taste and quality of every bean.  At our purpose built eco roastery in Ivybridge, we also offer Home Barista training, as well as professional qualifications, in our state of the art training facility.”

City College Plymouth

Aramark, the college catering partner are now purchasing more than 60% or their products in the West Country region. We have switched one of our Costa outlets to an Owens coffee which is 100% Fairtrade and roasted locally in Modbury. The Allotment is still proving a success with a growing waiting list for available plots. The City College Plymouth maintained its Fairtrade status until summer 2017. The Free College breakfast is still available to all enrolled students to encourage a healthy start to the day. Menus are being driven in the PL1 Restaurant by the vegetable products grown on the college campus. The college successfully campaigns Health & Wellbeing throughout the academic year to promote healthier lifestyle choices.

Food is Fun

“Our aim is to improve the health and well-being of people of all ages, creating opportunities to change attitudes towards food and eating and increasing confidence, life-skills and motivation through education and community inclusion. Pop-up Cookery Schools are delivered across the South West, visiting the hearts of communities, motivating people to learn the importance of food and healthy eating and to explore food in ways that are fun, engaging and hands-on. We improve health and wellbeing and life skills through food-based interventions, raise self-confidence and teach essential culinary skills while encouraging social engagement.”