Pledges Wanted: To Make Cardiff One Of The UK’s Most Sustainable Food Places
A new campaign hopes to set Cardiff on the path to becoming one of the UK’s most sustainable food places.
Food Cardiff, a city-wide partnership of more than 200 individuals and organisations - is asking people from all walks of life to ‘make a pledge’ and take action, to help Cardiff achieve Gold Sustainable Food Places status by the year 2024.
It is hoped that the pledges will empower Cardiffians to create a thriving local food economy, where everyone has access to food that is both healthy, and environmentally sustainable.
A Sustainable Food Place
Last year, Cardiff was awarded Silver Sustainable Food Places status – becoming the first place in Wales (and one of only six places in the UK) to achieve the prestigious accolade; the scheme is based on bronze, silver and gold achievements across six key sustainable food issues.
Independent businesses, cooperatives, third-sector organisations, and major institutions (such as Cardiff Council and Cardiff and Vale University Health Board) now want to see Cardiff strive for the gold standard, to become one of the UK’s most sustainable food places.
The campaign to make Cardiff a more sustainable food city is being coordinated by Food Cardiff, the city’s rapidly growing food partnership which has evolved into a dynamic and inclusive city-wide network.
Food Cardiff’s Sustainable Food Places Coordinator Pearl Costello explained, “Food Cardiff believes that the food we eat has a huge impact on life in Cardiff – not just on people’s health, but on communities and businesses, farmers and food producers, and the environment too. Good food creates strong, healthy, resilient communities which thrive. We are so excited to launch this campaign to give every single person – and organisation – in Cardiff a chance to make a pledge – or a few - and help Cardiff to become one of the most sustainable cities in the UK.”
Food Cardiff is part of Food Sense Wales, which aims to influence how food is produced and consumed in Wales, ensuring that sustainable food, farming and fisheries are at the heart of a just, connected and prosperous food system.
The Food Cardiff strategy board also includes ten volunteer members from a range of organisations including Cardiff Council, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Riverside Farmers’ Markets, Public Health Wales, Action in Caerau and Ely as well as many others.
Through this network, Food Cardiff is driving change at a city level and is working to tackle some of today’s biggest social, economic and environmental issues.
CASE STUDIES
1. A Sustainable Food Movement
Riverside Farmers’ Market was founded more than 20 years ago and has since grown to become one of the best known in the U.K. With markets taking place in Rhiwbina, Roath and Riverside on a weekly basis, the basic rule for all traders is that they must have grown, raised or made everything they sell themselves.
Riverside founder Steve Garrett explained how farmer’s markets can offer a more sustainable way of shopping:
“From low food miles, to lower levels of plastic, farmers markets cut out a lot of the waste. Fruit and veg comes out of the fields and it’s straight into the back of a van - that’s as fresh as it can possibly be. When people come to our markets, people can trust where the food has come from, but not only that - it tastes fantastic, too.”
2. An Empowering Food Movement
Alice Taherzadeh is one of the co-founders of Splo-Down, a member-run community food cooperative with the aim of making good, fresh food affordable to everyone.
They explained, "Coming together as a community like this, we have strength in numbers - it enables us to bring the price of good food down, and means that other people can have access to good food whilst paying less, or sometimes, nothing thanks to our solidarity veg box scheme. I've met so many friends through this - the pure joy of seeing mutual aid and just trying to help eachother out as neighbours creates the greatest sense of community."
3. A Thriving Local Food Economy
Cardiff Salad Garden is a not-for-profit social enterprise in a historic walled garden in Bute Park, which combines growing and selling fresh-cut salad leaves with working with disadvantaged people, refugees and asylum seekers. Leaves from Cardiff Salad Garden are sold to independent restaurants and food businesses all over the city and delivered sustainably, by bicycle.
The Lazy Leek is a small independent food business based in Pontcanna, best known for their delicious plant-based burgers. Lazy Leek founder Sam Speller has sourced from Cardiff Salad Garden for years and is keen to highlight the way that local connections are strengthened when people support independent businesses.
He said, “We have been to see Cardiff Salad Garden, it’s just down the road; they grow the salad with such care, and it tastes incredible because of that. We love buying from them, because we’re supporting another local business and all of the great work that they do. But we also want our customers to feel part of something positive - knowing that spending money with us means supporting businesses like Cardiff Salad Garden, too."
