October update

The Eating Better Working Group met in September and discussed progress on the Action Plans including:

• Bristol Education Partnership organised a sustainable lunch with the Sustainable Food Trust and Square Food Foundation for school leaders, school chefs, catering managers and some students to discuss how schools can introduce more local, seasonal, sustainable food.
   
• BOX-E continue to champion seasonal, sustainable and local produce – the team presented at a demo at the Foodies Festival earlier in the year and chatted about only buying asparagus in UK growing season to appeal to a wider audience.

• BeeZee Bodies have been re-commissioned by Public Health for two years to deliver Behavioural Healthy Weight Support Programmes (targeted healthy weight programmes, focused mainly on children and families and tailored to the needs of different communities). BeeZee Bodies held a webinar in the summer for people wanting to know more about the service. Many stakeholders attended from the local authority, primary care, community and voluntary sector. The next step is to develop Bristol City Council public health pages on healthy weight over the coming months.
   
• Following recent changes to the criteria of the Bristol Healthy Schools Award, there has been an increase in schools that are interested in applying for the Essential Award and are due to start the process at the beginning of the next academic year. There is a slow but steady rise in interest in the Healthy Schools programme since the beginning of the year. However, one challenge is that schools are feeling overwhelmed, and a changeover of staff can mean that important leads in a school can be lost.
  The Food Environment Specialist award has been expanded to include teaching at least five meals to secondary school children and at least two to primary school children.
   
• The Eating Better Working Group recommends that the Bristol Healthy Schools Award is expanded to include recommendations that schools teach shopping skills, as well as cooking. Each specialist award is expected to be reviewed in the next academic year 2023/24 and the Food Environment Specialist Award will be reviewed in October or November 2023. There is growing interest in the Healthy Schools programme from a range of partners across the city.  

• The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is currently working on wording for breastfeeding being recommended in the WECA Good Employment Charter with Acas (who published guidance on how to support breastfeeding employees in the workplace).
   
• Feeding Bristol secured funding for a trial of developing local buying cooperatives in disadvantaged wards (buying from The Community Farm and Essential).