572e5880

The Great Carlin Pea Revival

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:52:23 GMT

The humble Carlin Pea, once a staple of northern kitchens and celebrations, is stepping back into the spotlight as cooks, growers and communities rediscover its flavour, history and potential. Last Sunday was Carlin Sunday : the fifth Sunday in Lent is known as “Carlin Sunday” in the North East, when these peas are traditionally eaten, normally as parched peas - boiled and served doused in salt and vinegar. This custom is unique to the region, and we want to keep the tradition alive.

A Pea With Deep Northern Roots

Carlin peas , sometimes known as black peas or maple peas, have been part of northern food culture for centuries. Their story stretches from medieval monastic gardens to the famous Newcastle siege of 1644, when a shipment of Carlins is said to have saved the city from starvation. Parched peas have been served on Carlin Sunday for generations: do you have any memories of this as a child?!

Delicious, Nutritious and Surprisingly Versatile

Beyond the folklore, Carlins are great to cook with. High in protein, fibre and iron, they’re hearty and delicious. Their flavour is nutty and earthy, similar to chickpeas but richer, and they hold their shape beautifully in cooking, so you work just as well in a classic bowl of parched peas as they do in modern dishes: curries, salads, stews, even a Carlin pea paella. The Hodmedod's Website has loads of great recipe ideas for you.

Good for the Soil and Good for the North

Like other legumes, Carlin peas fix nitrogen in the soil, reducing the need for fertilisers and supporting regenerative farming. Many northern farms already grow peas and beans to improve soil health, but much of this crop ends up fed to livestock or ploughed back into the ground. Reviving Carlins for human food could diversify local agriculture, support farmers, and build a more resilient regional food system that relies less on imported food and animal proteins.

Food of past, present, and future

The tradition of eating Carlin peas is fading in many places, even in their heartlands. Reviving them is about valuing the rich food culture of the North, celebrating ingredients that tell our story, but it is also about celebrating our present and future diverse communities, making opportunities to connect through shared dishes. Carlins (and other peas and beans) feature in recipes around the world, from dal to hummus to foul medames, making them a perfect ingredient for inclusive community food events.

Mick Marston, who is a member of Gateshead Food Partnership Steering group, has been engaging local groups to spread the message of carlin peas and encourage more groups to grow. He will share more on this next month.

We're joining The Food Foundation’s “Bang in Some Beans” campaign, a nationwide effort aiming to double UK bean consumption by 2028 and get more of us cooking, enjoying and celebrating beans, pulses and legumes. The campaign highlights how good beans are for our health, our budgets, and the planet: they’re high in fibre, packed with protein and micronutrients, affordable, and far more climate‑friendly than many other sources of protein.

Celebrity chefs including Hugh Fearnley‑Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and Tom Kerridge have backed the initiative, reminding us that beans are “fantastic for your health and packed full of fibre.” If you want to learn more about why fibre matters, and why it’s an problem that 96% of UK adults aren’t meeting the recommended 30g of fibre per day, with average intake sitting at around 16g a day - just over half of what we should be eating, Hugh Fearnley‑Whittingstall’s recent BBC Radio 4 series, The Fibre Factor , is worth a listen: it explores why the UK eats so little fibre and how simple, everyday changes (including beans!) can make a big difference. The Bang in Some Beans campaign itself has a podcast, too.

Join the bean revolution, join the Great Calrin Pea Revival!

Try adding a handful of lentils to your soup, swapping half your mince for kidney beans, or exploring a new carlin pea recipe. You can buy dried, jarred, or tinned from the Hodmedod's website.

Try planting some carlin peas and beans! They’re fast and easy to grow, great for adding nutrients to your soil, and lots of them have pretty flowers. Now is a great time for sowing, indoors or under cover from now, or directly outdoors in a week or so once the soil is workable and not too cold.

For recipes, or to order some low-cost, organic and UK-grown peas and beans, Hodmedod’s is the best place to go.

Next Steps for Gateshead Food Hub

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:48:27 GMT

In October 2024, Gateshead Food Partnership and Green Heart NE CIC came together to trial a food hub pilot in Gateshead, aiming to make it easier and cheaper for organisations to purchase food for their community food projects.

The Gateshead Food Hub works by purchasing food in bulk at wholesale prices and delivering it in our electric van to community projects free of charge, supporting them to make their funding and donations go further.

The project has now supplied more than 20 organisations across the borough with a newly set up food ordering system. It has also been able to provide an ad-hoc service distributing free food and other goods between organisations committed to reducing food waste in the North East, including REfUSE in Chester-Le-Street and Olio collectors in Gateshead.

Following the successful pilot, the project is now able to be extended with the help of local charity Feeding Families.

Food pantries, community kitchens and other social impact food projects in Gateshead can continue ordering through the established system, and with support from Feeding Families, the project will be rolled out further across the region.

One of Gateshead's Food Charter aims is that Gateshead is a place where everyone has access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food, moving from reliance on food aid to food justice and resilience. The Food Hub project has a longer-term aim to become a way to distribute sustainable, locally sourced, good food for North East charities and communities. The move to Feeding Families comes alongside the beginnings of a new 'Food Justice Network', aiming to work supportively and in partnership with local projects to help reduce the demand for emergency food provision, move away from traditional food banking and towards more dignified, sustainable models of community food provision.

Councillor Maria Hall, cabinet member for Localities, Communities and Volunteering at Gateshead Council, said: “We are so grateful to Green Heart for their work to establish this scheme.

I am delighted that the trial in Gateshead, led by our Food Partnership Coordinator Nikki Dravers and funded through our UK Shared Prosperity Fund, has resulted in Feeding Families picking up the project to scale up across the region.

Everyone should have access to affordable food, and we need to do everything we can to support families that are struggling in our area.”

Andy Redfern, founder of Green Heart NE CIC, said : “The success of the Food Hub, with the support of Gateshead Council, is largely due to adapting different approaches to food supply until a sustainable model was found. I am excited to see Feeding Families take this project forward, allowing it to grow to the next level.”

Wayne Dobson, Chief Executive of Feeding Families, said: “We are passionate about getting nutritious food into the hands of those who need it. By working together across the region and using Feeding Families UK scale in purchasing power, distribution and logistics, we can support thousands of families struggling with the cost of living. We are thankful for the great foundation laid out by Green Heart and aim to build on the shared vision of releasing people from food insecurity.”

To find out more about how to get involved with the Gateshead Food Partnership, follow our social media channels or sign up to our newsletter by signing the Food Charter.

To find out more about the organisations supporting people to access affordable food in Gateshead, visit Affordable food | OurGateshead or this document maintained by Gateshead Food Bank

Don't Eat Alone This Christmas 2025

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:56:56 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

The two weeks of Christmas and New Year can be a particularly difficult time for people who are on their own as their usual routines are disrupted and other public services are closed. We have put together this timetable and information listing groups across Gateshead, Newcastle, and Durham which remain open or are putting on special festive events that include hot food. Please share this to help ensure nobody in Gateshead needs to feel hungry or lonely this Christmas.
Go to OurGateshead.org.uk/Christmas2025 to add your group, update your listings, or find out more of what is going on in Gateshead at this time of year.

You can download and share this file so that you can give it out or put it up in your community location: Public Library - Making Every Contact Count Gateshead - Knowledge Hub .

From Gardens to Gatherings: A Celebration of Community Food in Gateshead

nikkidravers@gateshead.gov.uk — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 18:13:59 GMT

From Gardens to Gatherings, a vibrant celebration of our borough’s growing community food movement, is taking place in Saltwell Park this September. This flagship event will showcase the power of food to connect people across cultures and backgrounds, improve health and wellbeing, enhance our environment, and support sustainable local economies.

This celebration event will be a chance to eat good food together around banquet-style tables, share recipes, learn new skills, celebrate food heritage and diversity of tastes in Gateshead. It will be a colourful, inclusive event, great for a family day out, all ages and backgrounds are welcome. It is free to attend, all the workshops and activities will be free, and a variety of food options will be sold at low cost. No booking is required: please come along anytime between 11am and 4pm, though get in there quick if you want to sign up to the workshops!

The event will include:

Stretch tent filled with stalls showcasing voluntary sector organisations and projects based around food growing, creativity, and community food activities, selling fruit and vegetables grown in Gateshead by community groups, products made by local social enterprises
A schedule of practical workshops: learn about foraging, fermenting and dehydrating foods, tips on how to reduce food waste, make tea with locally grown herbs, and share stories of Gateshead’s food heritage and future. Sign up on the day, first come, first served
Food demonstration Tipi: hosted by Chef Anthony O’Shaughnessy with a variety of local chefs
Hot food offer serving locally produced and organic food cooked by Gateshead College students; tasty homemade soup served by the team at The Bank Chopwell; and Saji's Restaurant Felling serving Punjabi food. Enjoy this feast around banquet-style communal tables, dressed with wildflowers, encouraging people to eat together and start conversations with strangers
A small stage for entertainment and musical performances and short talks
A tipi tent for children and young people, creative play and art activities for all ages

We really encourage you to use public transport wherever possible to get to this event.

This event is funded by UK Government UK Shared Prosperity Fund; as well as funding from North East Combined Authority, and Royal Horticultural Society. Showcasing Gateshead Food Partnership: around 30 different voluntary sector organisations and small local food businesses will be involved on the day, with stalls, workshops, creative activities, cooking demonstrations, and musical entertainment.

Grant funding for Community Food Projects

nikkidravers@gateshead.gov.uk — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:26:48 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

Grant Funding for Community Food Projects 2025-26

Applications are now open for grant funding for community food projects. We expect to award grants of between £500 and £5,000, although larger amounts may be considered.

Do you have a project or idea that could make a lasting change in Gateshead to increase access to nutritious, affordable food? We are looking to fund ambitious, innovative and effective projects that will help to shape Gateshead food systems and practices in the long term.

1. About Gateshead Food Partnership

Gateshead Food Partnership is a collaboration of organisations looking at a joined up, whole system approach towards equitable access to nutritious, culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable food for all. The partnership of public, voluntary and private sector organisations is working towards a Sustainable Food Places Bronze award this year.

The Gateshead Food Charter states that we want Gateshead to be a place where:

everyone has access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food, moving from reliance on food aid to food justice and resilience
diet-related health inequalities are significantly reduced, citizens of Gateshead have the power and resources to demand that healthier food becomes more affordable, appealing, and accessible
everyone has the knowledge, confidence, and motivation to buy, cook and enjoy food and to shape their local food environments
good food contributes significantly to a vibrant and diverse local economy, creating good quality employment
our communities, organisations and businesses are connected and united to work towards a better food system for all, that protects and enhances our environment

We ask all projects and organisations with interest in this funding to join in this vision, help to co-create and deliver a Good Food Strategy and action plan for Gateshead. To sign the Food Charter click here , and please email foodpartnership@gateshead.gov.uk any time with any ideas, resources, events, or thoughts you’d like to share.

2. About the Community Food Support funds

UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), funding is available to share between VCSE organisations in Gateshead.

We’re looking to fund activities and partnerships which could provide insight into and pave the way for long term sustainable food system change in Gateshead. We encourage organisations to think strategically, think ‘outside of the box’, use this funding as an opportunity to pilot new or alternative approaches. We also encourage joint applications for projects run by more than one organisation. We want to use this opportunity to share learning with others in the food partnership network and build a joined-up approach to build community food resilience.

If your organisation received funding from this UKSPF Community Food Projects fund last year, you may apply again: but we will want to know how this repeat funding will be used to embed and sustain, strengthen, expand, or share with others, the work you did last year.

Projects could be varied in addressing any of our ‘ food charter ’ aims: have a browse of our website to read more about each of our priorities. Example projects we might fund could be:

Establishing or developing regular community meals, a community café, affordable pop-up restaurant nights or community breakfast clubs, serving nutritious food in an inclusive and welcoming space, reducing social isolation and connecting people with different cultures and backgrounds over a shared meal
Providing food education, spaces to develop cooking skills and confidence, giving people the skills to grow, cook and eat more plants, batch cooking for the freezer to avoid ready meals, offer opportunities for families to cook and eat together
Trialling a new model for your food bank, such as a membership-based food club, to provide more sustainable support for those struggling to afford good food from local shops, and provide the healthiest possible choice of food
Establishing or developing a community garden, orchard, or allotment, transforming lives of people with mental health, addiction or other wellbeing issues through connecting with nature
Listening to voices of refugees and people seeking asylum to improve access to culturally appropriate food, kitchen space to cook, or workshops for diverse communities to cook and eat food from different cultures together
Working with young people to create youth-led campaigns and projects to advocate for change to their food environments
Running a women’s support group aimed at supporting mums to recognise and overcome the hurdles to feeding their children nutritious food in early years
Building an idea into a social enterprise which might develop employability skills in the food and hospitality sector
Sharing your model and experience in another part of Gateshead: funding your time to take volunteers to visit other projects and communicate with other organisations to share best practice and resources

All activity and spend must be completed by 22nd March 2026 .

To apply, please complete and return this form before Monday 14 ^th July.

A short period of application assessment will take place before all partners are notified of their outcome. We may contact you for further details. The final decision on grants offered will be made by the panel and there will be no right of appeal.

There will be two chances to receive more information, discuss and ask questions before applying, we really encourage you to attend - especially if you have not applied for funding before:

Tuesday 24th June, 4pm-5pm on Teams
Friday 27th June, 3pm-4pm, on Teams Click here to get a Teams meeting link

We really encourage you to use public transport wherever possible to get to this event.

If you have any questions or would like an informal discussion before applying, please contact Nikki Dravers – Gateshead Food Partnership Coordinator.

Email: foodpartnership@gateshead.gov.uk Phone: 07513 484914

3. Criteria for Expressions of Interest

You should be able to tick at least one from both of the following two categories:

Issues to be tackled

Your project works to improve access to healthy, nutritious, culturally appropriate food for those experiencing food insecurity
Your project works to improve the health and wellbeing of those who face the consequences of disadvantage and inequity
Your project helps people connect with and value food, giving people the knowledge, confidence, and motivation to buy, cook and enjoy good food
Your project empowers and amplifies the voices of those affected by inequality or injustice, finding ways to transform their local food environments
Your project helps contribute to a vibrant and diverse local food economy: e.g. developing a social enterprise or project that build employability skills
Your project works to reduce food waste, addresses the root causes of food waste
Your project unites communities, organisations and businesses to work towards a better food system that protects and enhances our environment.

Approach

Your project helps to build efficiency and sustainability into a project you already run
Your project includes sharing best practice, resources and ideas with other organisations in other areas of Gateshead, forming new partnerships with other organisation(s), campaigns, businesses or groups
Your project will be strengthening, piloting or developing new community food initiatives, takes on a new policy, procedure or approach to your community food activities

4. Application process and criteria

Please apply by filling in this form

There is no restriction on capital vs. revenue funding: we can provide organisations with some capital funds to spend on items such as, but not limited to, fridges, freezers, and cooking equipment.

Projects must be delivered in Gateshead only.

At least one organisation in a partnership needs to be constituted and have a bank account. Non-constituted groups may apply only in partnership with one who is. Grants will not be awarded to private individuals.

Before you apply, you must have:

The capability to deliver community food activities
Knowledge of the community that you will be delivering your provision in and how you plan to meet their needs
Appropriate Safeguarding policies and Public Liability insurance in place. If providing food, must be registered with Environmental Health as a food organisation.
Capability and willingness to share the work you do, learnings, successes and failures, with the wider food partnership network: through in-person meetings, social media, and other media

5. Terms and Conditions

Information regarding the fund will be announced via email, social media channels and advertised on Gateshead Council’s website.
Applicants can apply from Friday 20th June until Monday 14th July.
Supporting documentation that has been requested needs to be provided. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
The applicant must declare that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, the information contained in the application is correct and the person signing off the application is authorised to do so.
Organisations and partnerships must be based in Gateshead, and serving communities in Gateshead.
Applications will be evaluated by an assessment panel. The panel’s decision is final and there is no appeal process.
The panel may contact you to discuss the EOI, and may suggest changes to your project in relation to other applications: the aim is to share funds fairly between a number of different projects, and encourage partnership working, so it may be that the EOIs can facilitate alternative, joined-up and mutually supportive work.
The applicant will receive the outcome of the assessment in writing via an email to the contact supplied on the application form. If successful, the applicant will be required to sign and agree Terms and Conditions which constitute an offer of funding, prior to initiating any expenditure.
If the information offered in the application changes, the applicant must inform the Food Partnership Coordinator immediately.
If funding is awarded, it is to be used only for the purposes approved in the offer letter and abide by Terms and Conditions of the Fund. The Fund reserves the right to recover grant aid that is used for any purpose other than the approved purposes.
All successful applicants will be required to complete a Monitoring Form. This must be completed as soon as the grant has been spent. A blank Monitoring Form will accompany the letter of acceptance. Successful applicants will be required to provide evidence of their expenditure including receipts of spending, all monies not spent or accounted for will have to be returned to the Fund.
Funds must be spent before 22nd March 2026, and monitoring forms submitted by 3rd April.

Networking Event: Food Growing

nikkidravers@gateshead.gov.uk — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 17:23:21 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

Food Partnership Networking Event: Food Growing

Gateshead Food Partnership are hosting a networking event focused on ideas and strategies for sharing training and skills related to food growing. This event will provide an opportunity to hear about the types of training that can be offered by groups and individuals, as well as exploring what additional training might be needed to strengthen and support our collective efforts in the community. All ideas and experiences are welcome!

The aims of the event are to:

• Identify gaps in training and resources that we can collectively address

• Hear about community food growing projects already happening in Gateshead

• Sharing and exchanging training ideas that can support food growing and education within our communities

• Building stronger networks of support and collaboration between food growing groups

We believe that by coming together, we can strengthen our individual efforts and create a more resilient and connected food-growing community. If you are looking to offer or receive training in any aspect of food growing, this event will provide a space for valuable conversations and network development.

Location: Comfrey Project, Windmill Hills Centre, Gateshead, NE8 1QB

Time: Monday 14 ^th April, 9.30am until 1.30. Lunch served by Comfrey Project volunteers at 12.30

Book your place by filling in this form

Don't Eat Alone This Christmas

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 09:44:11 GMT

THIS IS 2024 INFORMATION: for this year please go to Don't Eat Alone This Christmas 2025 !

The two weeks of Christmas and New Year can be a particularly difficult time for people who are on their own as their usual routines are disrupted and other public services are closed. We have put together this timetable and information listing groups across Gateshead, Newcastle, and Durham which remain open or are putting on special festive events that include hot food. Please share this to help ensure nobody in Gateshead eats alone this Christmas.
Go to OurGateshead.org.uk/Christmas2024 to add your group, update your listings, or find out more of what is going on in Gateshead at this time of year.

Funding opportunity

nikkidravers@gateshead.gov.uk — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 10:48:33 GMT

Food for People and Planet

Funding Opportunity: Food for People and Planet

A small pot of grant funding has been made available from Gateshead Council for community food projects to apply for. We are looking to fund projects that can help to reduce carbon emissions related to any and all parts of the food system, from farm to fork. For example, work to reduce food waste, address causes of food waste, reduce food miles, or educate and engage communities in ways that encourage the transition to lower carbon diets and lifestyles. We expect to award grants of between £500 and £2,500.

Please click here for more information and funding criteria, and click here to apply before 13 ^th January 2025 .

There will be an opportunity to hear more information, discuss your ideas, and ask any questions on Teams on Tuesday 17th December at 4pm. Click here if you would like to attend.

Upcoming Events - Gateshead Food Summit

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 15:35:46 GMT

The inaugural Gateshead Food Summit will be officially launching Gateshead Food Partnership: a collaboration of organisations looking at a joined up, whole system approach to make nutritious, culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable food affordable and accessible for everyone in Gateshead.

We invite representatives from public, voluntary, and private sector organisations, as well as any interested Gateshead citizens, to join us at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts to hear opportunities and challenges relating to food in Gateshead, network with others, be inspired by work already happening, join in discussions and take action together. We will ask attendees to sign Gateshead's new Food Charter, to help co-create and deliver a sustainable food strategy for Gateshead.

Friday 8th November, 9:15AM to 4:00PM. Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

More information and reserve your place below:

Growing Food: Community solutions to growing, storing, and sharing produce

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 15:35:45 GMT

Facilitated excellently by Sheinaz Stansfield, we had a day of lively discussion all about the multiple holistic benefits of growing food.

There were some concrete outcomes and commitments from those who attended, including the development of a food growing working group which looks towards organising a festival of Gateshead food growing in 2025.

Lunch was provided for us by 'Meals on Wheels', a CIC that has come out of Gateshead Community Organisation.

It is encouraging that there are now three ‘partnerships’ of sorts beginning to work together on lots of these aims: Bensham Bites - a group of small organisations in Bensham area working together on increasing food growing, preservation, and distribution in their local area. Chopwell Regeneration group - working on a local food strategy for Chopwell; and the HOPE network allotment project bringing community allotments together in the East of Gateshead.

Have a listen to this podcast from Feeding Britain, all about ‘Crop Drop’: how they have worked with local allotments to provide fresh food to local food providing organisations and schools: a simple idea that makes a big impact, both to the growers and to those receiving food support.

Cooking activities

Wed, 15 May 2024 07:08:28 GMT

On Monday 25 ^th March, our Food Partnership networking event focussed on community cooking, organisations teaching food skills and cooking on a budget. We had some excellent discussions and positive networking. Lunch was served up by chef Trevor, who runs St Chad’s Community Kitchen.

20 organisations involved with teaching cooking skills gathered to share what works, what the challenges are, and what resources they can share. Organisations shared tips and ideas to equip them to run more activities, more effectively.

Organisations attending included:

St Chad's Community Kitchen
Nourish
HAF/ Brighten the Day
Men's Pie Club
Gateshead Football Club Foundation
Gateshead Community Organisation
Peace of Mind
St Chad's Community Centre

Resources and links:

Food Ladders: a useful framework when thinking about food projects. Teaching cooking skills and activities around food is in the ‘second rung’.

Food insecurity: reimagining our response

Fri, 10 May 2024 07:08:27 GMT

How do we work together to reduce the need for food banks? What sort of projects build capacity in our communities, to prevent people getting to the point of needing emergency food parcels? As the cost of living crisis continues, and one in four children experience poverty in the North East, can we ‘re-imagine’ our responses to food insecurity?

Over 50 people attended our gathering on Thursday 2nd May to ask these questions. We heard from Andrew Forsey from Feeding Britain to set the scene: challenging us to think about how we can use our collective power to help give freedom to mean that all can live not only free of hunger, but also free of shame and stigma, free of worry, with a household budget that enables them to eat well and thrive in their communities. Professor Greta Defeyter from Northumbria University then gave some fascinating insight into research about co-locating council services in Newcastle food banks (see her fab graphic in the slides), having a person-centred approach to supporting people so that they don’t have to spend all their time and emotional energy telling the same story to multiple agencies.

Lesleyann Watson from Gateshead Foodbank then showed evidence that when people are given more cash, for example through Cost of Living payments, the need for their support goes down. She stressed that the Trussell Trust continue to campaign for an end to the need for food support, and that wrap-around services in food banks make a huge difference: they have gained clients £411,000 through their financial inclusion support, seeing a 23% reduction in the need to return to food banks.

Sam Laing from Citizen's Advice Gateshead then gave an excellent whistle-stop tour of all the support they offer, which is a lot! It was helpful to show that when we're talking about food poverty, we're talking about poverty: there are multiple causes and important solutions unrelated to food.

Wayne Dobson kindly travelled from North Tyneside to tell us about their work at Cedarwood Trust: setting up a professional preparation kitchen to make microwavable, freshly made and nutritious meals from surplus food that they are distributing to food networks in North Tyneside. Wayne also spoke about the journey they’ve been on in developing a food pantry, seeing that by asking for a small fee for their social supermarket, it is accessible and free of stigma for all, and a ‘top up’ for people to buy extra bits of food that they wouldn’t afford in the shops.

Finally, Nikki Dravers, Gateshead Food Partnership coordinator, presented Prof. Megan Blake's "Food Ladders" framework, and asked everyone to colour code their projects one each "rung" of the ladder. A colourful map shows that though there are gaps and concentrations of provision, there is a lot of good already going on and a lot of potential to work together and learn from each other. I hope our recently launched funding opportunity for community food projects will help facilitate action: we're looking to help pilot new, innovative, partnership projects which might help move from the "catching" to the "capacity building" rung on the ladder.

The whole event ended with the most amazing lunch served by the Samosa Sisters: "women empowering women". Thank you so much to them, to Sara and the team at Peace of Mind for hosting us!

Food Redistribution

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:08:28 GMT

The first meeting for the newly launched Gateshead Food Partnership, we decided to begin with the subject of food waste and food surplus redistribution. We had 35 attendees from organisations across Gateshead, including some private sector businesses.

The event was held at the Winlaton Centre, who have a community larder where members of the community can select food at a low price, much of which is collected surplus from local retailers, or delivered by Fareshare.

We heard from organisations involved with surplus food redistribution:

BIND in Newcastle who started Eat Smart, a fantastic project reducing waste in primary schools;
REfUSE in Chester le Street who have a 'pay as you feel' community cafe and also run Eat Smart;
Pickle Palace in West Gateshead who have a pop up pantry as well as working in primary schools;
The Comfrey Project who engage their volunteer community in how to be thrifty with food, saving, using and preserving scraps;
Fareshare North East , who redistributed 1,220 Tonnes of otherwise-wasted food in 2023.

We then shared some questions and used big pieces of paper to find out how organisations can support each other and work together more.

Positive outcomes include organisations agreeing to share food and resources via a WhatsApp group (which has proved very effective, active every week); organisations being connected with a large food retailer who is willing to donate surplus and cost-price stock; and initial conversations to develop Eat Smart, a food waste-saving schools project in Gateshead.

Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about this or future events.

Further resources:

This Is Rubbish have a fab series of videos which convey the issues of waste and food poverty: Plenty to Share - This is Rubbish
Sustainab le Food Places website
Gateshead Food Partnership Facebook Page and Twitter/X account : please follow!
Feeding Britain website piloting solutions that prevent food poverty