The Local Food Growth Plan

An ambitious, collaborative action plan to expand the local food sector.

This work is a culmination of two years’ research and consultation with food supply chain stakeholders working at local, nation and UK-wide scales.

The Plan outlines 31 actions for local and mayoral authorities, national governments, investors and food and farming organisations to grow local food.

It takes a UK-wide view, but much of the work to build the local food sector must practically happen at the regional and local levels. To understand this better, we commissioned four regional cohorts of Food Partnerships to develop their own Local Food Growth Plans.

Regional approaches to Local Food Growth

Sussex and
South Downs

South West
Peninsula

South of
Scotland

The
Marches

The exercise showed the strength of the regional Plans to do things that the national plan cannot including:

addressing location specific production challenges and opportunities
understanding local infrastructure needs at a granular level
growing demand in ways appropriate to the local context.

The teams behind the creation of these plans reported the exercise led to stronger collaboration, ambition and energy around local food, and gave them assets they needed to engage with local authorities and investors.

The UK-wide Local Food Growth Plan calls for a regional-specific Plan in every area and this exercise demonstrates the powerful work that can result from that.

An ambitious, collaborative action plan to expand the local food sector.

Regional approaches to Local Food Growth

The Local Food Plan is led by