Good Food Plan - join the conversation

The Good Food Plan delivers part of one of Liverpool City Council’s ‘Pandemic Pledges’, ‘Good Food, Warm Home’, announced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It also supports Liverpool’s City Plan vision to create a ‘thriving sustainable, fair city for everyone’.

Together Liverpool Food Insecurity Lead Executive Dr Naomi Maynard is also Network Coordinator of Feeding Liverpool. Naomi said: “Over this last year, our council, the voluntary sector and local businesses have worked closely together to ensure everyone in our city was supported.

"This partnership working continues to strengthen as we work together on the first stages of Liverpool’s Good Food Plan, crucially bringing the insights and experiences of people with first-hand experience of food insecurity into the conversation. Together we can create an action plan to ensure there is good food for all.”

Deputy Mayor, Councillor Jane Corbett said: “With the impact of austerity and now the pandemic, poverty is rising very fast. As a council we will continue to support our citizens struggling to make ends meet, with emergency grants and household items. In this day and age it is morally wrong that so many families are having to decide between putting food on the table, clothing their children, paying the fuel bills or keeping a roof over their head.

“This Good Food Plan builds on many years of responding to food insecurity, taking our collective response to the next level. I welcome this emerging plan and the hard work and commitment by so many partners so far. I look forward to hearing from and working with those most affected by poverty, those tackling food insecurity and those fighting to ensure a healthy standard of living for all.”

Kevin Peacock, Chief Executive of St. Andrew’s Community Network, coordinators of North Liverpool Foodbank and member of Liverpool Food Insecurity Task Force said:

“Food affects us all. It should be a source of pleasure and joy, but for so many who struggle to put food on the table it is a source of anxiety and stress.

"Liverpool is a city with so much good food in it and Liverpool’s Good Food Plan is about making sure that everyone can eat that good food. It will be based on the experiences of those who work and volunteer in communities, organisations and businesses to provide food and shaped by the voices of those who struggle.

"It will take a hard look at where we are now as a city, identify some things we can do now to make a difference, and set out a realistic timeline and a roadmap for longer term change.

"The plan is a collective effort. We know that people in Liverpool really care for each other. Our hope for the plan is that it is owned by the people and organisations of Liverpool and evolves as we understand what it means for everyone to be able to eat good food.”

Paula Atherton, Policy, Partnerships and Programmes Officer for Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services said: “Liverpool’s Good Food Plan will be co-created; we are listening to people with lived experiences of hunger and food insecurity, we are talking to staff and volunteers on the front line of food provision, and to businesses and third sector partners who understand and service our communities. We are putting people at the centre of our action plan to strengthen our food system and build resilience within the community responses to food insecurity, to ensure high-quality food provision for all.”

Matt Ashton, Liverpool City Council’s Director of Public Health said: “Food is a basic human need. We know that there is a strong relationship between the food we eat, and our health and wellbeing. Our city has a proud history of innovation in public health and we have the talent and the people power to create a city where everyone can eat good food, no matter who or where they are. Now what we need is a plan to deliver it.”

Nadeen Haidar, RD, Liverpool’s Good Food Plan Lead said: “Food choices are influenced by a wide range of factors – from early childhood food experiences to national and international policies and trading agreements. To account for this complexity, we are looking into tapping into a wide range of expertise; especially expert voices that have been traditionally excluded from these conversations – like frontline practitioners and people with lived experience.”

The Plan will address key issues including acute hunger; chronic food insecurity; access to and take-up of healthy, nutritious food; and the sustainability of food supply in Liverpool, which will link into the wider ‘City Plan’ agenda.

This first stage of Good Food Plan, which has already been set in motion, involves listening to local residents, creating food provision maps, bringing together data to understand levels of food insecurity in Liverpool, and to set the foundations for future phases of implementation.