Strengthening Dignified and Equitable Access to Affordable and Healthy Food in the City of Brighton & Hove

Strengthening Dignified and Equitable Access to Affordable and Healthy Food in the City of Brighton & Hove

Strengthening Dignified and Equitable Access to Affordable and Healthy Food in the City of Brighton & Hove

Summary:

This brief showcases Affordable Food Projects (AFPs) in the city of Brighton & Hove, illustrating how they can be an alternative to conventional food banks while providing a pathway towards more inclusive, equitable and sustainable food provision in the context of food insecurity. 

Detail:

The research for the brief was conducted as part of Building Back Better from Below, a broader action-research project focused on community innovations that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brighton & Hove, São Paulo (Brazil), and Toronto (Canada) and involved four community-based shops, pantries or social supermarkets: Pankhurst Pantry, Phoenix Food Shop, Cornerstone and Woodingdean Food Hub; one fruit and vegetable box scheme, the Very Local Food Hubs); a food bank at the Black & Minority Ethnic Community Partnership (BMECP), and a school holiday lunch club, Chomp.

Affordable Food Projects (AFPs) are membership-based channels which supply subsidised food and non-food essentials in low-income neighbourhoods, where access to affordable food is limited. They come in all shapes and sizes and include community shops, pantries and vegetable box schemes, with distinct operational models. AFPs are initiatives that provide affordable, fresh, and local food to residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. They are different to conventional food banks, which normally provide food parcels to people experiencing food insecurity, for a limited period. 

AFPs emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of heightened emergency food needs. Food deprivation is a long-standing and unequally distributed problem in Brighton & Hove, with inequalities across neighbourhoods and influenced by race, age, disabilities and income. However, the pandemic left more people reliant on food banks as a long-term solution to food insecurity. By 2022, 58% of the Emergency Food Network’s users were using them indefinitely, versus 27% in 2021. In response to the demands of the pandemic, the number of organisations providing emergency food more than doubled, from 21 in 2019 to 46 in 2020, and their character changed, from being primarily food banks to a range of providers, including the AFPs.

These are challenges identified are

  • Rising costs and demand versus shrinking resources
  • Fragmented food sourcing
  • Internal capacity gaps
  • Food quality
  • Creating culturally inclusive spaces and sourcing culturally appropriate food
  • Transparency in communication of available services
  • Networks and the potential for peer learning
  • Coordination across Brighton & Hove
  • Scaling up initiatives and integrating them into existing food systems

The research recommends the following that can help AFPs to strengthen their operations by

  • Creating inclusive spaces for racialised and minoritised communities
  • Building a recognisable brand
  • Improving communication and transparency with participants/members
  • Strengthening linkages with other food initiatives in Brighton & Hove and across Sussex
  • Improving AFPs’ fundraising capacities
  • Working towards effectively managing and supporting volunteers
  • Ensuring an appropriate ratio of paid staff to volunteers to avoid burnout
  • Working collaboratively to pilot local food chain sourcing practices
  • Engaging with local and national processes of peer learning and advocacy

The full report can be downloaded at https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/articles/report/Strengthening_Dignified_and_Equitable_Access_to_Affordable_and_Healthy_Food_in_the_City_of_Brighton_Hove/27255228?file=49859790