Bath & North East Somerset

Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) are developing a local authority-wide food strategy to promote healthy, sustainable and local food in their area. Their aim is to improve accessibility to healthy, affordable food and to transform their food culture to one that improves health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability and the local economy. Although they are in the early stages of developing their strategy, numerous successful food projects are underway in B&NES relating to healthy eating, communal food growing, cooking and growing skills and local food markets. Their first event will engage with food representatives from across the district to take a collaborative approach to future work.

Current projects

• FFLP: B&NES Council has commissioned the Food for Life Partnership to embed their programme across our primary schools. 57 out of 75 schools are currently enrolled in the programme. B&NES council's catering service was also among the first local authority catering service to receive the FFLP catering mark bronze award for all catered school meals. A short film about sustainable food use in our schools can be viewed here.
• B&NES public health team commission a number of healthy eating programmes for residents. These include: The Cook It Service, a programme teaching people to cook healthy, affordable meals; the implementation of our Director of Public Health Award in schools, colleges and early year settings; healthy weight management for children and young adults via HENRY and SHINE programmes; and implementation of the Workplace - Wellbeing charter.
• Eat Out, Eat Well Award; B&NES Council and Sirona Care and Health deliver this collaborative award programme to encourage food outlets to serve healthier food.
• Local Farmers Markets: there are several wonderful farmers' markets operating in B&NES including Bath farmers' market, Keynsham farmers' market, and Midsomer Norton farmers' market.
• Community Food Growing: Bath Area Growers and Transition Keynsham are among a growing number of groups to have set up communal vegetable plots, nutteries, orchards and community supported agriculture projects. Volunteering and educational days are regularly held by groups to engage members of the public in sustainable food growing, harvesting and, of course, eating! A map of community gardens in Bath city centre has been produced by Bath Area Growers.
• Fare Share Bath redistributes surplus food to over 10 charities in B&NES helping to alleviate food poverty and reduce food waste.
• Food waste recycling and reduction: weekly food waste recycling collections are offered to all homes with kerbside green box recycling collections in Bath and North East Somerset. The Council has also partnered with the national Love Food Hate Waste campaign to help reduce food waste via educational road shows, events, competitions and door knocking. Food waste recycling collections are now provided in all B&NES council offices.

Documents

B&NES Environmental Sustainability Partnership's Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy

B&NES Local Food Strategy 2014-2017