1. What is a Sustainable Food City? Ben Reynolds - Sustain @UKSustain
A UK perspective
Ben Reynolds - Sustain @UKSustain

4. Diet related disease in UK
1 in 3 children under 18 are obese
estimated 4.5million adults with diabetes 2
cost of diet related disease to UK National Health Service - £8.8billion, but higher if include dental costs

5. Food Poverty in UK
Approx. 8.4 million people in UK struggling to get enough to eat - that’s about 12% of the population.
Supermarket workers needing to go to food banks because of low earnings.
25% of all UK farmers live in poverty.

6. GHG emissions % comes from food/farming – but little attention on tackling this i.e. through reducing food waste or eating less/better meat. Biodiversity In less than 50 years we have lost over 44 million pairs of breeding birds in UK. 89.5% of fish stocks globally either overfished, or being fished as hard as they can be. In UK waters only 17% of stock in healthy state.

11. Sustain’s work:
Food across the UK
Food in Cities
Food in London

17. Almost 50 cities, boroughs, counties joined so far (more expected)
All have partnerships with government, community and business involved
All cover issues: Access to healthy food, public procurement, food economy, community skills/projects, promotion to public, reducing food waste and eco-footprint

18. The Pledge Amber-rated How does it work? Avoid the worst Red-rated
Specific and clear, but flexible
Agreed by collaboration of organisations
Different for large and small businesses
The pledge requires a caterer to…
Avoid the worst
Red-rated
Promote the best
Green-rated/MSC Certification
Improve the rest
Amber-rated 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2
Fish-serving institutions are asked to sign the fish cities pledge 1 5 4 3 2

19. How to become a Sustainable Fish City
To change the fish-culture, we need to gather pledges from the largest and most influential caterers in a city. We have identified the following 5.
Cities are awarded a ‘star’ for each category that they achieve.
Innovation
TARGET – both:
10 Iconic businesses
Innovative Campaigning/ engagement
Public Sector
TARGET – 2 of the following:
Majority of PRIMARY SCHOOL catering
Majority of SECONDARY SCHOOL catering
Significant amount of other Council Services (Care Homes, Welfare Catering, Police, Fire, Civic Catering , Council run libraries, galleries or museums)
Hospitals
TARGET – main contractors
Higher Education
TARGET – at least half HE institutions
Large Employers/ Staff Canteens
TARGET - at least 10 large employers

24. Growing Health report cover – which tool to use

26. On to the findings
Won’t go into the full details – they can be found in the report. A PDF is available on the Sustain website for download.
- The league table clearly shows the leaders and laggards year-on-year but I would like to highlights one important thing.
30 out of 33 boroughs improved their scores since last year showing more action on good food. For that I would like to congratulate these local authorities. They are doing more, often with less resources.

27. Food for Life Catering Mark
2016
2011
To illustrate this progress, I compare the situation in 2016 with 2011, the first year we published the report.
In 2011, 17 out of 33 London Boroughs had achieved at least Bronze Food For Life Catering Mark in the majority of schools. 8 had achieved Silver. None had achieved Gold.
Things have moved on quite a bit since them. Gold and Silver are now the norm. This year, 21 achieved at least Silver, among them 8 have achieved Gold.
Boroughs are also extending the Catering Mark accreditation to nurseries. 7 have extended accreditation to nurseries.
This means more children than ever are eating balanced, freshly prepared food, and from sustainable sources.

28. Ben Reynolds ben@sustainweb.org
@UKSustain