The Granite City Goes Gold

Aberdeen has made history—becoming the first place in Scotland and just the sixth in the UK to be awarded a Gold Sustainable Food Places Award. 

This prestigious recognition celebrates the city’s ambitious and inspiring efforts to transform its local food system, ensuring food is healthier, fairer, and more sustainable for everyone who lives in the Granite City.

At the heart of this achievement is Granite City Good Food, Aberdeen’s local food partnership, which has worked with a wide coalition of partners to put food at the centre of efforts to build a thriving, equitable, and climate-resilient city.

The Sustainable Food Places Gold Award is a major milestone for Aberdeen. It recognises not just outstanding food projects, but a whole systems approach to food that tackles social, environmental, and economic issues head-on.

A National First, A Shared Achievement

With this award, Aberdeen joins the ranks of Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Cambridge, and Middlesbrough—the only other places in the UK to achieve Gold. The Sustainable Food Places Awards are the UK’s only place-based award scheme recognising outstanding leadership and impact in creating sustainable food systems.

This success belongs to the city as a whole. The award reflects the work of a vast network of individuals and organisations—from grassroots groups to council officers, community growers to school meal providers—all working together to deliver meaningful, lasting change.

Areas of Exceptional Achievement

As part of its award bid, Aberdeen was recognised in two Areas of Exceptional Achievement, both of which demonstrate how food can be a powerful lever for positive change:

• Good Food for All
  Aberdeen has taken a joined-up, strategic approach to tackling the root causes of food poverty, ensuring everyone can access nutritious food with dignity. 

• Food Citizenship & Food for Good
  The city is fostering a vibrant local food culture—empowering communities, supporting food skills, and growing participation in the good food movement. 

These achievements align closely with both Scotland’s Good Food Nation ambitions and Aberdeen’s own Local Outcome Improvement Plan—making the award not just a recognition of what’s been done, but a mandate for what’s to come.

A Model for Others

Aberdeen’s success is a powerful example for other cities and regions across the UK. It shows what’s possible when whole systems thinking, strong partnerships, and community-led action come together around food.

This Gold Award isn’t the end goal—it’s a springboard for deeper, broader action. Aberdeen is showing the way forward for sustainable, inclusive local food systems across Scotland and beyond.

We offer our warmest congratulations to Granite City Good Food and to all the incredible people and projects behind this achievement.

Read the full story on the Granite City Good Food blog

Explore their Areas of Exceptional Achievement