Harvesting solutions to Barnet’s food challenges at the Barnet Food Summit
On Monday 16 October (World Food Day), the Barnet Food Partnership hosted the borough’s first Food Summit. The gathering at OneStonegrove brought together many of Barnet’s key players in the local food system with the mission to share knowledge, experiences and ideas to address the complex food challenges currently faced in Barnet.
The event opened with Cllr Alison Moore, Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board at Barnet Council, who highlighted the pivotal role that food plays in our lives - our health, our community, and our environment – and the council’s vision for everyone who lives, works and studies in Barnet to have access to affordable, healthy food.
Kat Carr, Health in All Policies Officer at Barnet Council, gave an overview of the Barnet Food Plan, a 5-year strategy which expands on the borough’s previous Food Security Action Plan. The plan centres around three themes: Healthy People, ensuring access to nutritious and affordable food; Healthy Place, advocating for a healthier food environment; and Healthy Planet, striving to reduce emissions linked to food production.
The summit featured thought provoking presentations from a variety of speakers across the topics of food banks, food surplus and the experience of food poverty; food partnership and food growing; and social enterprise and action.
Professor Nathan Davies, Director of Education at UCL Division of Medicine, shared research on food bank users and the declining quality in diet between 2021 and 2022 in Barnet. Pat Caplan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London, challenged conventional notions around surplus food, questioning who truly benefits from it. She emphasized the structural issues behind food poverty and debunked myths about the individuals facing it.
Freddie Askham of The Felix Project discussed the organisation's efforts in surplus food distribution to hundreds of partner organizations across London. While acknowledging that surplus distribution doesn't address structural problems, he highlighted the immediate impact it has in providing food to those in need.
Deepa Chauhan, Founder of Burnt Oak Food Bank, shared her motivations for establishing a temporary food bank, which has been operational for two years. A local resident who had experienced the need to rely on a food bank bravely shared her story and highlighted the real-life implications of food poverty and how quickly our financial situations can be affected when faced with loss of work, family illness or increasing financial demands.
The summit also featured voices from the realm of food partnership and food growing. Brian Kelly of Organiclea Community Growers and Wendy Alcock of Incredible Edible Barnet emphasized community-led initiatives, encouraging others to start up their own community gardens, as well as highlighting the need for larger-scale food growing. Sarah Alun-Jones from GROW highlighted the potential of green spaces in Barnet for sustainable food production – and that food growing doesn’t have to be at the expense of nature, we can grow food in a way that enhances biodiversity while also connecting us back to nature and to how food is grown.
Nigeal Andall, founder of Allotmentz N11, talked about his projects, including how he opened a food bank during lockdown but soon realised it did not provide a solution to the problem. This led him to establish Allotmentz N11, a restaurant providing work experience and employment opportunities for young people. Vicki Williams and Filomena Komodromou from Bread n Butter shared their work, delivering cooking classes in schools, with parents and children, and community cooking with asylum seekers. They described how their meal kits for cooking a family meal at home are really popular, and offer support to families without provoking some of the negative feelings that can be associated with receiving food aid.
The event facilitated an exchange of ideas, experiences, and strategies, with the hopes of fostering a sense of collective responsibility to address the complex challenges that surround Barnet’s food landscape today.
Get involved! If you’re passionate about tackling the challenges around food in Barnet, contact food@barnet.gov.uk to join Barnet’s Food Partnership.