Webinar: From Plans to Practice: Building Community Food Resilience in Bristol
14 May @ 12:00 – 13:00
We know the UK food system is vulnerable to shocks, but what does preparing for them actually look like at community level? In Bristol, a pioneering partnership between universities, food charities and community organisations has been developing a disaster risk plan for food security, drawing on lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic response and planning for future crises including extreme weather, cyber-attacks and supply chain disruptions.
During the first Covid-19 lockdown, Bristol’s community food organisations mobilised rapidly, distributing hundreds of thousands of meals and food parcels to vulnerable residents. But much of that response was improvised, relying on volunteer goodwill and emergency funding. The Bristol Food Disaster Risk Planning project has been working to turn those hard-won lessons into a replicable framework, so that next time, communities are not starting from scratch.
How do you plan for food emergencies in a way that centres the most vulnerable? What does it take to coordinate across local government, charities and community groups? And can Bristol’s approach offer a blueprint for other cities?
Heloise Balme will share insights from the project and from Bristol’s wider work building a more resilient local food system through the Bristol Good Food 2030 partnership. This webinar builds on our recent explorations of food system resilience, from the IGD’s climate risk modelling to pathways research on how the UK could face food crisis, now turning to the critical question of what communities can do on the ground to prepare.
About Heloise:
Heloise Balme is Director and General Manager of Bristol Food Network, a community interest company that coordinates the Bristol Good Food Partnership, bringing together over 70 organisations working to make Bristol’s food system better for communities, climate and nature. Following Bristol achieving its Gold Sustainable Food Places Award, in 2023 the city published the Bristol Good Food 2030 Framework for Action – a strategy developed with Partnership members, which set the overarching goals and aspirations for the city’s food system this decade. Disaster Risk Planning is one of the themes within this strategy.
About Angelina (Chair):
Angelina Sanderson Bellamy is Co-found and Director at Root and Reason, and Professor of Food Systems at UWE Bristol. She has led on numerous projects to improve sustainability, health and equity within the food system, both in the UK and internationally. Angelina co-chairs the Bristol Good Food 2030 Partnership Steering Group and sits on the boards of Food Policy Alliance Cymru, Food Sense Wales, and Riverside Market Gardens. She has previously worked at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
About this webinar series
This webinar is part of a monthly series run by Root and Reason (formerly AFN Network+) which explores the transformation of the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals.