We’re aiming to put North Lancashire on the national map by becoming the first in the north-west to win a top food sustainability award.
The FoodFutures partnership is working to support North Lancashire achieve a Gold Sustainable Food Places (SFP) Award by the end of 2026.
The partnership, which is made up of people from the local farming community, food businesses, the public sector, Lancaster City Council, community food groups and academic institutions, has been working together for over a decade to create a more thriving local food system that is healthy, resilient and fair.
The Gold Award campaign follows a Silver award win in 2023, and Bronze in 2019.
Lancaster City Council is also backing the campaign, and FoodFutures is now inviting people across North Lancashire’s communities to show support and get behind this growing local food justice movement.
Anna Clayton, FoodFutures coordinator, said: “This is an evidence based award that seeks to recognise and celebrate places that take a joined up, strategic approach to food.
“It’s about local food movements responding to the big challenges of our time – from rising food poverty and unequal access to healthy, sustainable food, to declining biodiversity and more unpredictable seasons making it harder to make a living as a grower.
“I believe North Lancashire is doing a lot of great work around this, and we seek to prove this over the next year, whilst using the Gold campaign to leverage additional support to build the resilience of our local food justice networks and local food economy.”
FoodFutures is a member of the Sustainable Food Places Network – a rapidly growing movement of over 100 towns, cities, boroughs and counties that are working to make healthy, sustainable and local food a defining characteristic of where they live.
Each place’s food partnership brings organisations and people together from across their local food system – from growers through to distributors, cooks, eaters, teachers and composters – to overcome common challenges and become more sustainable.
North Lancashire’s Silver award in 2023 acknowledged progress made across six different areas of the food system, including action on food waste and food poverty, increasing sustainable local food production and the introduction of policies that support healthy, fair, and local food.
The Gold award requires the district to make particular progress in two key areas – building a more sustainable and just local food economy from the ground up, and developing Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership’s (LDFJP) food ladders approach.
Jamie Murphy, FoodFutures partnership chair, said: “North Lancashire’s application for a Sustainable Food Places Gold Award is a testimony to all the hard work undertaken by literally hundreds of people who sincerely believe in a just and sustainable future for our district.
“By focusing on a more sustainable and just economy through projects like the Plot and Gather as well as supporting communities to develop food services for themselves through the ladders model that allows people to take control of food justice services, we hope to demonstrate that our district and our communities really are golden.”
Coun Caroline Jackson, leader of Lancaster City Council, said: “Lancaster City Council is pleased to continue supporting FoodFutures into this wonderful ambition to become one of the very few areas in England with the Gold Award.
“The North Lancashire concern for food justice chimes with our priority concern for creating healthy communities in which everyone has access to a nutritious and sustainable diet.
“We look forward to seeing the way in which Gold award plans will influence the future of our food system and culture here, across the north west region and even nationally in the next two years.”
To support the region in working towards a Gold Sustainable Food Places Award, the FoodFutures partnership has just produced a new video to help promote the campaign, and is now looking for support from people across North Lancashire to achieve the Gold award by 2026.
Ways to get involved include attending a Food Champion induction session or quarterly partnership meeting, becoming a FoodFriend to help the scheme reach its 500 member target, signing up for The Plot’s FarmStart training scheme, or contacting harrietp@northlancashirecab.org.uk if you’d like to support the LDFJP partnership or your business can help food clubs to access surplus food.
You could also host a community food collection point, help out at your local food club or buy some of your weekly food shop from the North Lancs food hub Gather, or other sustainable local food businesses.
Businesses, individuals and organisations are also being invited to make pledges to help support the work, which could be financial, collaborative, helping to spread the word, events, or developing new ideas.
If you’d like to make a pledge, email marketing@lessuk.org for more information.
