Waltham Forest Local Food Hub, London
Lead Organisation: Women's Environmental Network (WEN)
Contact Clare Joy/Caroline Fernandez by email at food@wen.org.uk or telephone on 0207 481 9004.
Lead Facilitator: Nicole Freris
Contact by email at samsara1964@hotmail.com or telephone on 08454 582 871 or 07970 172058.
The projects aims to:
Develop a food hub that aims to support local people to:
- Access quality local organic produce
- Be informed about food nutrition and food growing
- Access training
- Run a café
- Be involved in micro-processing enterprises
In March 2006, a meeting in Walthamstow brought together local groups and organisations to explore issues around accessing and producing local food in Waltham Forest. The meeting demonstrated that there is already a lot of local activity, enthusiasm and interest in food issues, and the three host organisations (Organiclea, Forest Recycling Project and Hornbeam Envionrmental Centre) met subsequently to follow up on the ideas generated and find ways forward.
The various ideas coalesced into a proposal for a 'local food hub': a place where local people can get quality local organic produce, be informed about food nutrition and food growing, receive training, run a café and be involved in micro-processing enterprises. To get this off the ground, the groups decided to start running a weekly organic market stall outside the Hornbeam Environmental Centre and build up from there.
The stall, which has been running successfully since September 2006, is supplied by Eostre farmers’ cooperative in Norfolk, but also offers local organic growers the opportunity to sell their local produce, and in the autumn fruit season Organiclea sold freshly squeezed juice at the stall. The centre already runs a Saturday café which is now supplied with produce from the stall and brings a collective of local chefs and cooking enthusiasts to share their culinary traditions.
Now the stall has been established, we are following up on the enthusiasm expressed for developing food co-ops which can supply locally grown organic food at cost price to local neighbourhoods, and to build up the provision of information and training such as workshops on composting, and start using the community kitchen for processing enterprises.
Project contact:
Brian Kelly
info@frponline.org.uk
020 8539 3856