How to develop a Good Food Plan for your organisation

Would you like to make positive changes to food in your organisation? This month, Bristol Green Capital Partnership relaunches a ‘how to’ guide for creating a Good Food Plan for Bristol organisations, a joint guide coordinated by the Partnership, Bristol Food Network and Bristol City Council. In this blog, Ramona Andrews from Bristol Food Network shares an update on Bristol Good Food 2030 and explains how organisations can get involved by producing their own Good Food Plan with the support of this guide.

At Bristol Food Network we have been communicating about how the way we produce, buy, cook, eat and throw away food is important for health, communities and the economy for many years. We will continue to do so for as long as it takes to create the positive and inclusive food culture in Bristol that we dream of.

The importance of healthy and climate-friendly food is now being recognised across all sectors. So, whatever your organisation, you can make positive changes to its food practices to help lay the foundations for creating a diverse, inclusive and resilient food community. By creating a Good Food Plan, you can outline exactly what actions your organisation needs to take and what progress looks like.

A Good Food Plan is a policy document that provides clear aims and commitments on food for your organisation to work towards. This guide to developing a Good Food Plan is part of a wider piece of work, Bristol Good Food 2030, which includes the Bristol Good Food 2030 Action Plans – a set of priorities and initiatives that aim to make Bristol’s food system better for people and communities, climate and nature, workers and businesses. Bristol Good Food 2030 will set out a Framework for action up to 2030, and a set of detailed Action Plans to 2024, that consider the whole food system and how the different parts of it, and people within it, interact, affect and depend on each other.

Work on Bristol Good Food 2030 is split into six themes, each focussing on a different part of our city’s food system: Eating Better, Food Justice, Food Waste, Good Food Governance, Local Food Economy and Urban Growing. Together, the themes make up a ‘whole food system’ approach, making sure that every aspect of food in Bristol is considered. You can explore progress across the themes on the Bristol Good Food 2030 website.

Another exciting part of Bristol Good Food 2030 is our online hub which helps people in Bristol navigate, celebrate and participate in the abundance of good food activity taking place across the city. The hub lists local food events, news, stories and resources and covers everything from where to access good, affordable food to how to get involved with community growing groups or cookery classes.

You can navigate the events on the website depending on your interests – search for ‘big ideas’, workshops, eating out, farming, free, grow your own, money saving, online talks, or kid-friendly activities. If you are involved in a food organisation, from a food bank to a community growing project, get in touch to list your event on the site so that more people in the city know about it.

Bristol’s good food scene is a thriving part of the city and in 2021 the city was awarded a Gold Sustainable Food City award. Bristol Good Food has been set up to grow Bristol’s good food movement further and ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from all that is happening here. With more than 80 organisations already involved in the project, there’s plenty for you to explore on the website.

If you’ve put together a Good Food Plan for your organisation, we would love to shout about what you are doing – please let us share your story through Bristol Good Food 2030! You can download a graphics pack for logos and more to help tell Bristol that you are part of Bristol Good Food. Please get in touch to tell us what you’re doing and find out how you can feature on the Bristol Good Food 2030 website.

Download the guide to developing a Good Food Plan for your organisation.