Doing more with food

Can we tap into ‘build back better’ and our love of food to create prosperity?

This blog was first shared in early 2021 and will soon be published as a full article.

Synopsis

I’ve been passionate about food for a long time. In lockdown I was part of a large project to purchase and distribute emergency food provision in Bristol and the Midlands.

During this project I learned a lot more about the small food businesses in my area play a big part in supplying low income diverse communities.

It also struck me how far apart the worlds of the food sector and community food provision (think food banks+) really were.

The lockdown response changed this. They worked alongside each other. I believe for some businesses and customers, it changed how they think and will do business.

In late summer 2021, as we run from the constraint, lack of income, uncertainty and pain of lockdowns, how much of the positives of lockdown can we carry this into back to ‘normal’? Or whatever ‘building back better’ will mean?

I think some of the answers lie in what’s already emerging in Bristol and some business models I spent time with in America.

I know so many of the food businesses that survived lockdown are only now getting up off their knees. 

My ideas are just offered as someone who loves food and loves the potential for food businesses as an accessible but hard graft route to create prosperity for anyone who has the grit and skills to do it. I haven’t been through the pain of building a food business myself.

Context

In the height of confusion and hardship for communities in lockdown 2020 I ran a time pressured project for ACH - a leading national provider of housing and integration services for refugees. 

The challenge was to access funding via central gov contracts to distribute emergency food provision to communities deemed ‘hard to reach’ by public services.

This programme purchased, packed, and distributed 24,500 meals to 1500 people over 8 weeks in Birmingham, Bristol and Wolverhampton. That’s just under 20,000kg of food..

Full report here

Through this I got to know the different worlds that supply food to low income and diverse communities:

• the small food businesses that (alongside low cost supermarkets) play not just a huge role in supplying food to low income diverse communities, but a big role in people’s lives. 

• This world has been far removed from the growing food sector of restaurants, cafes, pubs and producers we know and love.

• It’s also been far removed from the world of community food provision - wholesale surplus food distribution, food banks, community projects and social enterprise cafes and community centres that have a huge role to meet immediate need.

Covid Response changed the way food organisations think

Businesses now had clear space, empty kitchens and a heightened awareness of the social context. The same creativity and graft that created the food we love put time and attention to addressing local need.

It also brought very different food businesses together in the process. Some examples:

• Somsaa London & Badu CIC collaborated to provide food for schools and then to create a youth led cafe in the Olympic park

• The Michellin starred Pony & Trap re-registering as a community interest company with a social focus

• Breaking Bread - a summer-long socially purposed food event space in Bristol, created by a collaboration of leading Bristol restaurants.

What Next with Food?

Now diners are back around tables and popup semi outdoor spaces are popping all over the UK, an extraordinary, clear and immediate set of needs in communities have been met,  what now? 

I believe the answer to this lies in giving communities the means to set up their own food businesses - removing the barriers of confidence, finance and a lack of connections that mean many people who want to build a food business stop before they lease a shop front.

Bristol 247 young chefs goes some way to achieving this, but focuses solely on creating skills. With huge commitment and graft they find the best possible in route to a food career for young people.

If we are to get truly new food offerings - and set a stage for new business people - I’d argue we don’t need to just create jobs.

Food businesses are tough to start and tough to run - but they are a great route to business for everyone to start a business. This is something I’ve experienced first in local covid-response business support programmes. 30% of local new startup ideas are food.

A business I spent time with in San Francisco, La Cocina knows this. 15 years ago they built a long standing 'kitchen incubator’ on the cusp of super privileged areas, and the communities that are constantly pushed further out by the house prices.

Operating a $2-3m turnover, having inspired similar ventures in other corners of the world, it’s not an emergent idea.

The idea I’ll explore, is how food can be a medium for making business, owning the point of production and the prosperity that comes from that more accessible.