In Brief

Good Food for All is an initiative to establish a Food Poverty Alliance within Herefordshire, in order to support those who find it difficult to access healthy, nutritious food.

Project Description

A national Food Power Programme led by Sustain, (the Alliance for better Food and Farming) and Church Action on Poverty, aimed to reduce the numbers of people who experience food poverty. Food poverty is defined by the UK government as "the inability of individuals and households to obtain an adequate and nutritious diet, often because they cannot afford healthy food or there is a lack of shops in their area that are easy to reach."  Lack of healthy and nutritious food has detrimental effects on health and well-being, especially amongst children and vulnerable elderly people.

One of the ironies of Herefordshire is that although it is a food producing county, it is among 25% of the most deprived areas in England for geographical access to services, including shops.  Average household income in the county is below the West Midlands average and 19% of households are officially defined as living in poverty.  Establishing a Food Poverty Alliance to monitor the scale of the problem and develop a local Food Poverty Action Plan are necessary steps to alleviating the issue.

Our Role

Brightspace funded a feasibility study to ascertain the scale of the problem locally, and convene a prospective Food Poverty Alliance within the county.  

We don't currently have a suitable dataset to monitor food poverty, as it is not measured nationally. The medium term aim is to be able to measure the levels of food insecurity in the county.

Brightspace acted as the Accountable Body and managed the project on behalf of the Alliance.

The Foundation Team Supporting Good Food for All

Peter Norton

Project Sponsors