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Keep in touch with the Food Alliance Blog - sign up here Follow on Instagram here, Facebook here Here's where you can see what's happening for good local food in Herefordshire. From local food events, through farming to food waste - we use the Sustainable Food Places topics so you can see the things you're interested in at a glance. Click on each one for more information or scroll down the most recent. Contact us to tell us what's going on in your part of the County and sign the food charter to add your voice! |
Another great feast!
Th
anks to the Open Arms group in Kington for hosting
And to Kington Kleen for much apple pressing
And to Madame Zucchini for her vegetable fun
And to lots of people of all ages that got stuck in to making pumpkin gnocci + colourful slaw - so tasty! Kids Kitchen's Gnocci recipe is here.
"We have changed our Volunteer Day hours a little - we'll be on site each Tuesday between 10am and 1pm (weather permitting). Please email
Thanks folks,Lou and the Growing Local Team"
**THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED**
You are invited - to the final Autumn feast creating 100% Herefordshire food experiences this Autumn.
From Hereford’s Fields & Pastures To The Table - featuring original stories, and music, reflecting Herefordshire's natural beauty and farming landscape.
Many thanks to everyone who came to Breakfast on the Farm on Sunday to enjoy food, to talk about their own produce, and to find out more about farming as a solution yesterday!
Chef Simon served up a superb two-course breakfast with honey, berries and oat groats to start, all washed down with juice Kefir and a herb tea blend! It didn't end there with a plate of cow-lloumi, sausage from within 20 minutes away, Herefordshire baked beans and eggs from the farm - with a seasonal twist of braised apple in place of tomato. Tasty.
We heard from a few of the people that grew and reared the food and Ruth shared the journey of some of the produce - including some that we weren't able to source in our current system.
Good news - this produce is available, and being sold direct right here in Herefordshire so you can recreate our breakfast feast with all the details below - whether you were there or not!
LEAP offers funding and mentoring to small agroecological businesses which are producing good food for their local communities.
The Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme (LEAP) supports small-scale agroecological food and farming enterprises with funding and business mentoring. LEAP offers a mix of loan and grant.
Businesses we support
We support all types of agroecological and community-based food and farming businesses, from micro-dairies and bakeries to ethical supermarkets and veg box schemes. We work with people who share our commitment to transforming the food system at a grassroots level. Watch our short video (2 min 37 sec) to hear from some of the farmers, food producers and retailers we’ve supported.
Reasons to be cheerful 😁
A few highlights from our picking and processing partnership diverting produce from wasteful to useful
many creates picked, many litres of juice (60 litres in one session!) slices for the freezer...
All good for the winter at Ledbury Food Bank and The Living Room Hereford
The Alliance is about both reducing food waste and food for ALL, so this is a double win.
PLus we have so many more links now too with orchards, growers, community projects. More plans will come!
One more opportunity to get stuck in- central Hereford, this Saturday. Join us!
PLUS if you help out with this or any community initiative in Herefordshire we're inviting you to breakfast, FREE next weekend!!
Next weekend, come to the Breakfast on the Farm - our AUtumn Feast Launch - completely on us. Here's the freebie link. Transport from Hereford, Ross and Ledbury provided.
Let us know you're coming before Tuesday 17th!
Hosted by Berkshire/ Buckinghamshire Wilife Trust, this free event links our food system to nature and vice versa.
If you'd like a similar event here in Herefordshire, perhaps with our wildlife trust and connecting it to the specific issues we have like the health of our rivers, please be in touch.
"We are delighted to welcome Professor Tim Lang and Vicki Hird to a special webinar following the BBOWT AGM. Our food systems are reliant on thriving nature and a stable climate. This webinar will look at how nature's decline and our food systems are linked, and what we can do to create a more resilient food system in the UK.
Tim Lang is Emeritus Professor of Food Policy at City University's Centre for Food Policy. Hill farming in Lancashire in the 1970s formed his interest in the relationship between food, health, environment and culture, which he's worked on ever since. He's currently working on how to improve civil food resilience and defence.
Vicki Hird is a campaigner and strategist who has been working on environment, food and farming issues for more than 30 years. As well as her role at Sustain, she is working on agricultural issues with The Wildlife Trusts movement. Her recent book, Rebugging the Planet, pays homage to insects and other invertebrates, examining why they are so essential to our ecosystems."
Ecological Land Cooperative and Landworkers Alliance
Join the ELC as an Ecological Land Farmer
"We’re on the hunt for passionate landworkers and ecological entrepreneurs who are ready now, or will be ready in the next 1-2 years, to build an ecological growing business on an ELC plot.
We don’t expect you to be ready to go today. We are very keen to hear from you if you are passionate and committed to gaining enough experience to set up a small farm business. This business could be any land-based enterprise – from fruit and veg, to animal products & dairy, fibre, fuel and medicine.
Riverford Organics have created a petition asking all supermarkets to commit to 5 sourcing principles.
"Almost half (49%) of British fruit and veg farmers fear they will go out of business within the next 12 months. 75% report that supermarket behaviour is a leading factor.*
If all supermarkets committed to these principles, the lives of farmers would be transformed - giving them stability, a reliable income, and protecting the future of British food and farming for the long term."
We're writing an open letter to the supermarkets, calling for change - but government support is vital too. Add your voice to ours by signing our petition. It's quick, easy, and will make a big difference. We're aiming for 100,000 signatures so that this can be debated in Parliament"
FInd out more and sign here
So - what do we all really want from food?
The National Food Conversation has been published and it's fascinating, and easily digestable!
Thousands of people were asked, in a variety of ways, about the potential things that could happen to improve our system.
The headlines are below - but the conversation found overhwelmingly that people - across ages and political spectrums - want substantial changes.
Sharing news below of Little Pomona's Open Day this Sunday in Bromyard - there are many more celebratory Apple Events over the next two weeks!
This post has a round up of most - which includes the Hereford AppleFest listings and others. There's also more apple fun with the two Alliance cooking sessions with surplus produce for Ledbury and Hereford Food Banks and Larders. Please continue to share these gleaning events, thanks.
From Pomona:
"Come and enjoy Hereford AppleFest with us during our Open Day this weekend!
We had a great first outing for the Herefordshire Gleaning Network this Sunday, picking 60kg of Bramley apples which might have otherwise gone to waste. We will be stewing and pressing these apples at our community cooking day this Sunday 8th October at Ledbury Community Hub at Pot and Page 11-3 so come along! If you have any surplus apples then bring them down to be made into juice for the Ledbury Food bank and stewed apples to put their new freezer!
Recent research has shown some interesting things about Growing Your Own...
When UK households have access to growing their own produce, they can produce more than half of their own food - and waste almost none. Food for thought!
"Household fruit and vegetable production in allotments and gardens can provide sustainable access to nutritious food. The present study demonstrates that UK household fruit and vegetable production supplies more than half of the vegetables and potatoes and 20% of the fruit that growers consume annually. Importantly, study participants ate 6.3 portions of their recommended 5-a-day fruit and vegetable(70% higher than the UK national average), and their wasted fruit and vegetable was 95% lower than the national average. This provides key evidence to demonstrate the role household fruit and vegetableproduction could play in providing access to fresh fruit and vegetable, which is key to a healthy, food-secure population.
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10413
Herefordshire Food Alliance had a great time on day one of the Marches Real Food & Farming Conference last week.
The conference was organised by the @shropshiregoodfood partnership and brought together an excellent programme with experts from small scale growing to composting, to local restauranteurs and much more. The Growing Local team joined the 'collective growing at scale' panel chaired by the alliance, talking about the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) element of the Hereford Market Garden project, along withThe Fold's CSA and Canon Frome Court, an intentional community in Herefordshire.
There were Herefordshire representatives in many of the panels and workshops, including Applewood Permaculture, Alliance member Jo Hilditch joining the 'nutrient run-off' panel and more. We're excited to keep those conversations and to have made links with neighbouring areas in themes of food, tourism, nature. Looking forward to next year!
We also hope to bring these conversations to the Autumn gleaning and cooking events - and the three Autumn feasts. See you there!
Calling all community groups in Herefordshire – there’s a survey that’s seeking your views.
Sustainability West Midlands, in partnership with Herefordshire Council, are developing a user-led climate change adaptation plan for the county. It’s about Herefordshire’s people, environment, infrastructure, buildings – helping to ensure they’re protected from the impacts of climate change.
Your thoughts on how the county is already dealing with extreme weather events, and what more it needs to do, will form a key part of the plan’s content, and will better enable the actions going to the right organisation.
The survey, is specifically asking for views from community groups within Herefordshire. The survey closes at 5pm on Thursday 28 September. Thank you.
https://online1.snapsurveys.com/interview/de25a02c-c7b0-44aa-b500-271eba82c505
Through the Food Farming and Countryside Commission:
"The National Conversation About Food kicked off in summer 2023 with a question: what do we really want from food? During a series of public dialogues, citizens from Birmingham and Cambridgeshire looked at the science behind what we eat and how we eat, the way our food is produced and marketed, its impact on climate and nature, the availability of healthy food, and the potential to change things for better.
The findings from the National Conversation About Food will be published later this month, with plans to continue the conversation across all four UK nations.
To get the report straight to your inbox sign up to our newsletter"
https://ffcc.co.uk/news-and-press/what-do-people-really-think-about-food
You can also hear the FFCC Chief Executive Sue Pritchard on BBC Radio Wales discussing supermarket power and the #GetFairAboutFarming campaign. https://ffcc.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=77d5d0e66eba93e66584d4c5b&id=a462983580&e=b4dfee48cd interview starts at 1:48:02
Use a free pass to enjoy some Herefordshire beauty, some of it producing our food, this Autumn:
"Take a stroll surrounded by colour, spot wildlife and connect with nature when you escape into autumn. Experience the awe of the season at places in our care by claiming a free, single-use pass to use between 18 September and 20 October 2023."
The Herefordshire application for BRONZE with Sustainable Food Places has been submitted.
Thank you to everyone who has supplied a stat, written a paragraph and of course who is doing the work to join up food in Herefordshire.
Sharing what you are doing is sometimes harder than actually doing it but it's worth it!
You can view the application here and we'll be talking about it in future events and sharing what was pulled together.
If you know an event that would like to hear about the work that's been going on, please get in touch.
Thanks to Ledbury Food Group for spreading the word...
"Congratulations to local producers whose efforts have been rewarded in this year’s Great Taste Awards.
Local to Ledbury” producers include:
- Willys from Little Marcle for their apple cider vinegars and Kimchi – 5 Awards
- Myrtle’s Kitchen for her Philpott’s Chilli Jam and BrineSalt, Lemon, Myrtle and Thyme Seasoning
- Just Rachel Deserts from the Hop Pocket for their Vegan Passion Fruit Ice Cream and Raspberry Sorbet
From the wider area of Herefordshire:
- Twigs and Dough for their special pasta
- White Heron for their British Cassis
- Oakchurch Farm Shop (A438 west of Hereford) – 7 awards including for steaks, pies and sorbet
- Gun Dog Gin for their fruit liquors – 2 awards
- Pip’s Cider for their ciders – 4 awards
- Hedonist Bakery for their bakery products – 3 awards
- Two Farmers for Woodland Mushroom and Wild Garlic Potato Crisps
- Broadfield Court Farm for their Whole Moo World milk – now available at vending machines in the county
- Woofys Brewery – 2 awards for ale and porter
- Black Mountain Roast for their Expresso Blend Coffee
- Wild by Nature for their Grass Fed Beef Snacking Salami
- Herefordshire Sauce for their Herefordsfire Sauce (stocked at the Nest)
And from just over the border in Worcestershire, McNeil’s Smokehouse have won a number of awards for their smoked fish products.
Go to https://greattasteawards.co.uk/results/ for more details and in many cases to links to stockists including local shops and farm shop outlets."
It's out of area but remote working and part time - hope it's useful
"Bristol Good Food 2030 Partnership Coordinator (job share)
Bristol Food Network (BFN) supports, informs and connects stakeholders across Bristol who have an interest in making our food system more sustainable, just and resilient. We are a Community Interest Company (CIC) and have been engaging and working with food systems stakeholders in the city for over a decade.
We have coordinated significant projects and campaigns including our current focus - Bristol Good Food 2030 - , Bristol’s Silver and Gold Sustainable Food Places Awards; the Bristol Independents campaign to support the local food economy and the annual Get Growing Trail which opens up community growing spaces across the city to the public.
Role Purpose
- To co-ordinate and support the Bristol Good Food 2030 Partnership of key actors who can deliver change in line with the 2024 Action Plans and 2030 Framework for Action.
- To develop and deliver projects owned by Bristol Food Network with the 2024 Action Plans and as agreed with BFN’s General Manager
