Glasgow Food Policy Partnership: Good Food Nation Gold

Scotland has enshrined in law that food is a public good: The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act (2022) makes it indisputable that food is a nationally significant priority.  With the reporting and assessment cycle for every Scottish Local Authority and Health Board in producing their Good Food Nation Plans now defined, it was timely to join Glasgow Food Policy Partnership for their annual networking event on March 4th – and to start shaping their campaign for a Gold Sustainable Food Places Award.

Glasgow Food Policy Partnership has been active for over a decade, bringing a coordinated governance structure to vital food activity across the city.  Their balanced emphasis on policy and projects shines through – and comes together through active community representation in their steering group.  Their 10-year Glasgow City Food Plan (2021) was authored by key partners, including Glasgow Community Food Network and Glasgow City Council after engagement with over 80 stakeholders and community groups.

Their emphasis on vision and positivity has been vital to challenging some entrenched national stereotypes about the Glaswegian diet – whilst the many projects championed by their partners build dignity, urban growing and increase access to healthy & sustainable food each day.  A sharp uptick in breastfeeding rates at 6-8 weeks[1] and the 230,000 meals served to Food for Life Served Here standards across the city provide live evidence of this commitment to population health.  Their pilots of public diners and integration of vocational cooking education with community outreach evidence commitment to creative routes to building distributed food access and skills.  Creativity, coherence and connectedness were all emphasised as the values that drive the work. 

When I asked Riikka Gonzalez (GFPP coordinator) to describe why now for their Gold SFP campaign, she reflected that, "Glasgow has spent over a decade building a multisector food partnership and is nearing a mid-point mark of its 10-year Food Plan demonstrating that change does not happen overnight. Our Gold campaign is an opportunity to engage with the public and encourage new organisations to come on board to take tangible actions towards more healthy and sustainable food to land on people’s plates. We hope our campaign manages to demonstrate what a whole-city approach to good food looks like in practice."

That whole-city spirit is about to get a very visible face. Before their Gold SFP campaign officially launches in May, Glasgow Food Policy Partnership is inviting high school students across the city to design a character who will travel across a map of Glasgow, celebrating every community event, project and initiative that forms part of the Gold award journey.

Scotland has set the legislative foundation. Glasgow – and Scotland’s first Gold SFP Awardee, Aberdeen - are building the living proof of what it means.  As Scottish Local Authorities and Health Boards begin the serious work of developing their Good Food Nation Plans, they need not look far for a model of what creativity, coherence and connectedness in food governance can achieve.  SFP strongly believes that food partnerships in Scotland are the most effective method for developing and delivering on cross-cutting Good Food Nation duties.  And that financial investment in food partnership coordinators from the Scottish Government would provide the rocket fuel for the Good Food Nation Act.

Chloe Smee