The Bristol Good Food 2030 Action Plans are published! 

Partnership Coordinator at Bristol Good Food 2030 (BGF2030), Louise Delmege, writes about the Bristol Good Food 2030 Action Plans and what they mean for improving the food system for Bristol. 

The Action Plans are the detailed plans of what actions will be taken by organisations across the city, to improve our food system by 2025. Alongside the Bristol 2030 One City Framework for Action, these more detailed plans give us a view of everything that’s being done in the united effort to improve our food system for everyone in Bristol.  

Having this record of all the work being done means we can identify connections where two or more organisations are working on the same thing. We can use this to connect them and improve their work through collaboration. We can also identify gaps, areas of need where little work is being done, or where the outcomes of our work aren’t being measured. Bristol Good Food 2030 can help to close these gaps by starting new projects and working with other organisations to secure funding for necessary work.  

As well as beginning new and important projects we can identify and change anything that’s going in the wrong direction. For example, businesses moving to compostable packaging without providing facilities to compost it are actually creating more damaging waste as the packaging releases methane as it breaks down in landfill. Laws on this are changing soon and we have an opportunity to help businesses get ready for this change.  

Every outcome in the Action Plans is measurable. We will be tracking the impact of the work in the plans by using a set of indicators gathered from organisations across the partnership and beyond. We’re still working on getting all the indicators together into one document so we can share them with you. Collecting data from across different sectors has been a mammoth effort and one that makes BGF2030 stand out as a large project with measurable impact.  

How did we put the Action Plans together? 

The plans are divided into different themes, and then the actions are divided into the different goals of those themes. Every BGF2030 partnership member who has an action recorded in the plan is working towards one or more of the goals agreed by the working groups, who began the project by setting out what each goal and outcome should be.  

Once the goals and outcomes were agreed we contacted as many organisations as we could, including businesses, council departments, charities and community groups, and gathered all the actions they’ve committed to, under each outcome. Then we went out again to all the stakeholders and asked them for the indicators they use to measure their work. These will be published soon so you can see the impact of the Action Plans.  

What next? 

Even though the Action Plans are only just being published, we have successfully completed some actions and made some changes thanks to the BGF2030 project. The council’s Healthy Schools Award has improved the Food Environment Specialist Award to include the requirements to teach students to cook for themselves that we recommended. Grow Wilder has added a chemical-free pledge to the Team Wilder campaign, encouraging more home gardeners and allotment growers to go chemical-free. Hear from Avon Wildlife Trust’s Sophie Bancroft and Grow Wilder’s Rosa Beesley on the Bristol Good Food 2030 blog to find out what going chemical-free means, exploring the challenges, and offering ideas and practical examples to help. 

We’ve also started a couple of new projects, including one to develop a Disaster Risk Management Plan that will ensure the city is better able to make food available to vulnerable people during a disaster. Our research into the actions planned across the food system revealed a gap in where preparations for the next lockdown or climate-related crisis should be. With this in mind, we started a project to fill that gap in collaboration with Feeding Bristol, University of the West of England and University of Bristol.  

Next steps for the BGF2030 plans are to release the measurable indicators so you can see the impact of the partners’ work on our food system. If your organisation is taking action around food, there’s still time to get involved and have your work recognised in our plans.  

If you want to join the Bristol Good Food 2030 Partnership or be added to an Action Plan, please get in touch with Louise and the BGF2030 team via the Bristol Good Food 2030 contact form.