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Community food initiatives in Scotland: activities and issues

1. Introduction

It is widely recognised that a diet rich in starchy carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables and low in fats (especially saturated fats) is likely to reduce or delay the development of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the UK (namely coronary heart disease, strokes and cancer, obesity, non-insulin dependant diabetes and dental decay) (DH,1991,HMSO, 1992). Achieving dietary change in the Scottish population presents a major public health challenge (DH, 1998, Scottish Office, 1996) but particularly so in low income communities where food choices reflect a complex interaction between economic circumstances (poor levels of disposable income), limited access to a wide variety of reasonably priced foods and cultural norms and expectations (Forsyth et al, 1994 ). Additionally, the combined burden of poverty, low employment, poor housing and sub-optimal physical and mental health contribute to difficulties in tackling behavioural change, which, in turn, contribute to increasing health inequalities (Scottish Office, 1998).

A number of recent studies have demonstrated substantial differences in dietary intake amongst lower income household (Gregory et al 1990, Gregory et al, 1994, Scottish Office, 1997) highlighting inadequate intakes of fruits and vegetables and excess fat (particularly saturated). The Scottish Diet Action Group (Scottish Office, 1996) identified four main, but interlinking barriers to progressing a healthy diet namely:

• limited availability of healthy foods of an acceptable quality and cost
• the difficulty and expense of travelling on public transport to “out of town” supermarkets”
• lack of basic cooking skills and equipment
• long established dietary habits and reluctance to change

To attempt to overcome some of these barriers a range of locally based food initiatives have emerged. An audit of Community Food Initiatives in Scotland undertaken in 1996 reported on the work of 77 projects including, practical cookery sessions, nutrition and health education, improvements in access to food (food co-operatives, community cafes and transport schemes), price discounts on selected foods and money advice (Anderson et al, 1996). Whilst these initiatives have enormous potential to help improve dietary intake, it was recognised within the Diet Action Plan for Scotland that “a combination of measures, brought within a strategic framework, which build on existing initiatives and tap into, and stimulate community initiative and energy” is required to address problems of diet in low income communities.

Since the audit of 1996 there has been considerable efforts to enable communities in Scotland to become more actively involved in promoting their own health. The Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS) continues their work in providing support for grassroots work to promote local activity, facilitating information exchange, supporting education and training opportunities for those involved in community-based health promotion and encouraging community consultation within relevant organisations and agencies.

In the diet and health arena The Scottish Office funded The Scottish Community Diet Project (SCDP) at the end of 1996 to co-ordinate dietary strategy, fund innovative diet projects and develop initiatives in low income communities. The SCDP has done much to network and promote community based food initiatives including grant awards of £30,000 to those “working within and with local communities to improve access to, and take up of, a healthy varied diet”. The grant scheme alone attracted over 70 applications totalling a quarter of a million pounds reflecting considerable enthusiasm for local projects. A total of 23 initiatives received funding.

Networking existing, new and future projects has been facilitated by the project’s quarterly newsletter Fare Choice. The SCDP programme of conferences and seminars has also provided a forum for sharing and exchanging knowledge and experience.

In Spring 1997 the specific details of the audit database was produced in paper format as “Food in the Community - a directory of Community Food Initiatives in Scotland” jointly by HEBS and SCDP. That production involved updating information on existing initiatives (often by deletion as short term projects disappear) but was unable to collect details on new projects. Although it is recognised that many projects are short-lived ,there is an impression that much new work is on-going or planned and it seems timely to update the current database to provide a comprehensive review of current activities.

From the 1996 audit it is clear that community food initiatives take many forms but increasingly it is possible to group these into 12 or so categories (e.g. food co-ops, community cafes). Whilst earlier work identified a global view of issues influencing the development and maintenance of food projects (including funding, premises, transport, and staffing issues) there is little information available on the barriers and opportunities that exist within specific project categories. Newer types of initiatives such as Breakfast clubs/bars appear to have become popular with the increasing demise of school meals but unlike the Food Co-ops there has been no integrated approach to bringing those involved in this work together and it seems possible that networking specific categories of projects may have additional benefits for the development of future work.

The aims of the current study are:

1. To update and expand the existing community food initiatives on the HEBS database.
2. To explore pertinent issues and themes with those involved in running various categories of community food initiatives
3. To make recommendations for policy and practice out of the discussions with various community food initiatives.

2. Research methods

2.2 Database profile - an overview

In total, 103 Community Food Initiatives (CFIs) were identified as currently operating in Scotland in January to March 1998 . These are listed (by Health Board area) in Appendix 2. This number represents a 33% increase over the 77 recorded in the first audit. In this overview we describe the main types of activities of the projects for which we have information and compare the results with earlier work where possible. It should be noted that because of changes in the questionnaire to suits the needs of the user community direct comparisons between the two audits are not always possible.

A wide range of CFI currently operate in Scotland, with different aims, objectives and origins. Geographically, the most concentrated areas of action appear to be Strathclyde, followed by Lothian, and Dumfries and Galloway. These last two differ from the original survey, in which Grampian and Tayside were more active.

The overwhelming perception of the purpose of the projects was that of improving health (67) and raising awareness of health and dietary issues (52). Support for Self-help groups (40) and community networking (39) were the next most important.

Health and nutrition education was the most popular activity (63). Food co-operatives (36) and projects to develop cooking skills (35) were the next most popular, whilst Community Café was listed as an activity by 28 respondents. In addition, 23 listed delivery services, and 9 were involved in growing initiatives. Compared to the earlier work, there was a growth in the number actively involved in nutrition and health education (63 compared to 41), cooking skills (35 compared to 30), community cafe (28 compared to 22). Other comparisons are not possible due to the change in question categories.

CFI’s are sited mainly in Community Centre or Community Flats (60), with workplaces (19) and schools (15) the next most common. Others are sited in village and church halls, mobile resources, community shops and allotments. These responses are similar to those of the original survey although it is notable that community centres and flats as a location has substantially increased (46 in 1996).

The majority of CFIs obtained their food from wholesalers and cash and carry establishments (45). Supermarkets (34), fruit and vegetable wholesalers (24) and fruit and vegetable markets (18)and CFIs (16) were also common. Other sources were the Co-operative Wholesaler Society, farms and community gardens/individuals.

Most of the CFIs target the whole community (67 (65%)) Other significant groups served are children (16 (15%)), people on low incomes (15 (15%) ) and families including single parents (13 (13%)). Other target groups are men, women, mothers, unemployed, people with mental health problems and disabilities, under 5s, children, elderly people, young people (16-25s) students, people in the workplace, people in part-time employment and people in poverty. These results are somewhat different from the earlier work (but this may be partially due to changes in category responses) where 23 (30%) were aimed at the whole community, 18 (23%) at children and single parents 6 (7%).

The overwhelming majority of CFIs seek to cover only their local neighbourhood (67), but significant numbers reported serving the local authority area (18) or rural area (14). Other areas served were the town or city, Health Board Area, and Island.

The survey sought to establish what training had been received by the staff of the CFI projects. Food hygiene (44) was the most common form of training, followed by committee training (25), business training (20) and marketing (12). Eight respondents had undergone other types of training. The most usual provider of training was the local authority (34) and the Health Board (8) and local Enterprise Trust (8) also being providers. Interestingly, 25 individuals reported having received training on a voluntary basis, and 11 from the private sector.

CFIs are supported financially in the main by local authorities (50). Health Boards and NHS Trusts (35) give significant support, but 26 are self-financing. Other CFIs receive support from Urban Aid (18), Charitable Trusts (14), Lotteries (11), urban partnership ventures (9), local Enterprise (8) and surprisingly, only 3 from European funding. Eighteen also listed other forms of support such as church funding. These results differ from the earlier work in that lottery funding appears as a new source of funding, and assistance from health boards and trusts have increased.

Discussion of Methods

The aims of this project were clearly designed to facilitate future work in the community food area. Inevitably this draws out some compromise between research and practice agendas. For example, if the aim of the study were to compare the amount and type of work in the Community Food Area between 1996 and 1998 then an identical questionnaire would have been utilised. In this case the questionnaire had to be appropriate for users of the community food database and experience made it clear that this meant redefining the categories of work and the subject areas under query. The total length of the questionnaire was also much reduced inorder to encourage returns. Thus whilst some indication of growth and development in this area is reported this project was not specifically designed for this purpose

The development of mailing lists and cross checking requires considerable preliminary preparation. Amendments to projects, addresses, personnel, aims, objectives and activities as well as changes in local authority boundaries add to the time and effort required to facilitate this particular type of audit work. It is clear from previous work that some local authority and health board departments are happier to pass on questionnaires directly to projects than to reply to the research group. We allowed for this is our communications in an attempt to facilitate response rates (e.g. a food project financed by a local authority may be more likely to respond to a questionnaire from it’s funding body than external researchers).

2.1 Methods

The HEBS Community database questionnaire was revised and amended in consultation with HEBS (in relation to technical requirements), The Scottish Community Diet Project (in relation to identifying key questions for inclusion) and The Edinburgh Community Food Initiative (in relation to specific queries on overall design and content).The categories selected for defining community food activities were identified from previous work (database) and were broadly similar to those used in the Fare Choice readership survey which was on-going during this period. The Questionnaire was piloted with 2 groups from Ferguslie Park, Paisley and two groups within the Edinburgh Community Food Initiative and subsequently revised. The questionnaire was designed to collect basic information that would enable community groups to network information without being off-putting for completion. The final version contained 14 questions on four pages of A4, was estimated to take 5-7 minutes to complete and was compatible with the HEBS Community database (See appendix 1)

Locating CFIs

A mailing list comprising 2 mailing groups were was drawn up to locate community food initiatives:

a) organisations and individuals known to be largely “directly” involved in community food projects at some stage in the past or present. These addresses were obtained from the existing CFI database information and the mailing lists from FARE CHOICE .The majority of these addresses were for individual projects but some were for “indirect organisation” (e.g. Community Education, City of Edinburgh).

b) other organisations or individuals who may have “indirect involvement” or responsibility for food projects in the past or present. These addresses were obtained from

The Community Nutrition Group (CNG) mailing list

Participants and contributors to The Poverty Alliance Foodworks enquiry

Participants in the FOODLINKS conference (Highland Health Board & Poverty Alliance workshops)

Relevant departments (e.g. community development, social work) within each of the New local authorities (the original database was complied prior to local government reorganisation)

Relevant departments within health boards and trusts (e.g. health promotion, dietetics) and the Community division at HEBS

Land use and Environmental bodies e.g. Soils Association, National Federation of City farms, Scottish Agricultural Colleges

Local Enterprise Companies

Scottish Co-op - community co-op lists

COSLA- social strategy mailing network

There were considerable overlap and duplication between these two mailing groups which were manually checked before posting.

Initial contacts to the first (direct involvement) mailing group comprised a covering letter (stressing the reasons for the exercise, the importance of reply and inviting respondents to provide other contact names if other projects were known locally), a questionnaire and reply paid envelope. Contacts to the “indirect” mailing group comprised a covering letter (inviting contact names and addresses where short questionnaires should be sent to), a list of current known local community food initiatives in their local area and a questionnaire (for reference). It was recognised from previous work that some (“indirect”) recipients would not reply but simply forward the questionnaire to relevant groups.

A response from “indirect” groups (about projects) was followed by individual mailings where “direct” contact names were given. All names which were considered to be directly involved in projects received one questionnaire which was followed by a subsequent questionnaire and telephone call if no response was received within 1 month.

An article “Calling All Community Food Initiatives” was sent to; Rural Forum magazine; Scottish Council For Voluntary Organisation and Scottish Community Education Council for publication outlining this audit work and inviting readers to ring The Centre for Applied Nutrition Research if questionnaires were required.

Responses

Information was sent to around 225 names deemed “directly” involved in community food projects. Of those contacted, 30 projects were found to be no longer in existence and a further 9 replies came from individuals or professionals not directly involved in projects at the time of the survey. At the end of data collection (March 1998) information was obtained from 103 projects representing a response rate of 46% (103/225)

Information was sent to around 275 names deemed “indirectly” involved in community food projects. Of those contacted 22 written replies were received with a further 15 telephone calls.

Identifying the numbers of new (e.g. those not on existing database) projects was problematic as many perceived as “new” were infact operating under new names but same premises, or same name but “new” premises or with a slightly new objective or a widened set of objectives. In addition, this round of data collection added in 9 “growing” projects not previously on the database.

Projects which were no longer active were removed from the database (Appendix 3)

A substantial number of projects (70) failed to return questionnaires and these need further follow up

Since the end of data collection some additional questionnaires have been returned to HEBS indicating a need for a process which allows regular additions and database checking.

3. Small group discussions

3.2 Food co-ops

(Small Group Discussion One held in Edinburgh 7 attendees)

Contemporary themes raised within the groups.

Background The size and turnover of co-ops vary. In one case the co-op was in effect one family while others may have a registration of 400. Opening hours are also variable one co-op opening 30 hours a week while other operate for a few hours once a week. While some co-ops may operate out of a members home many operate out of community facilities such as community centres, community flats, village halls and mobile shops. Space in these settings may well be limited or in demand by other groups and co-ops frequently have to set up the goods each time they open and pack away at closing time. Storage and display may also be a problem.

Aims Food co-ops often develop as a response by local people to poor shopping provision particularly with respect to the lack of choice and availability of affordable products. Some co-ops concentrate on a very small product range (e.g. fresh fruit and vegetables) while others offer a wider range of products (e.g. nappies and basic groceries). Groups of local people often supported by health workers and community staff organise the bulk purchasing of food and distribute it amongst their members. While it is potentially easy to set something up it is more difficult to develop and maintain such work, and, in effect, people become involved in running a small business requiring a range of skills and significant time committment.

Venues Some co-ops are hampered by their ordering scheme, limited opening hours and unsuitable premises. It may be difficult for people to locate a food co-op

“hidden down the back of somewhere through a set of doors”.

Sometimes, premises look run down with people being unsure of where the food has come from , why it is so cheap and who is making the profit. Many people would prefer to shop ” normally”, and to enjoy the range of consumer choices in a vibrant commercial setting without stigma . There was an impression that the siting of co-ops, restricted opening times, hard to find locations, unattractive “shop fronts” could be a somewhat limited shopping experience. One respondent made the point that having a low income shouldn’t mean having access to a lesser shopping “experience”. .

Staffing Co-ops are often heavily dependent on volunteer labour to operate and manage the service. Volunteers may find themselves increasingly involved and sucked into the project, feel exploited and “burn out”. However many volunteers gain a range of skills through their involvement and many move on into further training and employment from this initial experience.

Funding Start up funding is often the first obstacle with small projects being in receipt of start up grants and seed corn money from a number of agencies including health promotions and local authorities. Support workers may be in a position to help the groups locate other sources of funding to meet the costs of overheads such as rent or publicity. One co-op based in a community centre operated without such overheads.

Designation The designation food co-ops cover a range of community based food initiatives involved in collectively buying and selling food. While some groups are constituted as co-operatives other operate as loosely knit bulk buying clubs. The point was made that this uncertainty over definition could be clarified to assist the development of new co-ops with a view to determining the extent to which they can develop as voluntary activities or community based enterprises.

Another alternative to the food co-op model are bulk buying clubs /collectives. In this way small groups are involved in a straight forward relationship with a wholesale supplier (that may be a community food initiative). Food is ordered and delivered to the group who benefit from discounts. Not all the attributes of food coops are found in bulk buying systems which tend to be more exclusive (by virtue of organisation systems) and some of the educational opportunities are lost (e.g. tasting or discussions about foods). However there may be possibilities for these arrangements to co-exist.

Mobile initiatives are, in some cases, an extension of food coops and in one community health project these involve direct door delivery. This project targets particular groups in pockets of deprivation and is linked into a befriending scheme.

While the size and turnover of the co-ops vary so did the structure. In calling themselves a food initiative one distribution network was able to register as a charity which not only gave them a certain status and credibility to certain trusts but meant they could apply for rate relief, as part of their financial balancing act. Co-ops are registered as friendly societies and can not qualify for charitable status as they have shareholders.

Most people felt that word of mouth was the best form of publicity as leaflets were normally discarded and often pricey. It was noted that the media was only interested in bad press and not an obvious route for marketing. In one area the name food co-op had a bad reputation because of a previous problems with dishonest activity.

Training Co-ops are usually run by a management committee who will be involved in making decisions about the day to day and overall decisions about the co-op. One co-op was able to pay one staff member to run a small shop but largely at a very low wage which is more of a courtesy payment than a realistic wage. However, for some volunteers, involvement’s with food co-ops have opened up new doors by acquiring new skills and confidence which will improve their motivation and chances in moving onto further training and employment.

The successful development of voluntary food co-ops is closely linked to appropriate volunteer training, development and support. Not only is there a need for food handling and hygiene skills but committee work and potentially business and marketing skills. This effects food initiatives at a number of levels. For example becoming a corporate member of the C.W.S. opens up a range of support and development services such as access to marketing and retailing skills and even surplus refit items like displays and shelving. There appear to be a number of community co-op shops in the more remote rural areas and an increasing interest in developing links with the co-op. Colleges and health promotions provide food and cooking skills. However, it should be noted that local enterprise companies often seem less inclined to provide training in business skills as co-ops are seen as voluntary operations with no profit motive.

Developments One new group has a taken a further step into community resource provision as a result of their involvement in the Food Works enquiry into food security. This is a collaborative venture to establish A Community Retail Enterprise Partnership and has involved a group of volunteers working with the local enterprise company, the Institute of Grocery Distributors , the local council and the C.W.S. to establish a micro Coop which will be community owned and managed and provide access to “normal foods at prices they can afford”. Stock will include fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish but not alcohol. While the land and premises have been gifted by the local council, this is a commercial venture which will reinvest any profit into community ventures and employ local people.

Suppliers A particular problem for fruit and vegetable co-ops is accessing suppliers and wastage. One group estimated that they had lost £1,000 in wastage over a three year period and said how difficult it was to predict what people would buy and therefore what to order. Other co-ops operated on an order only basis which is difficult for some of their users who are not in the habit of planning ahead and predicting which items required. When co-ops are able to cater for the casual shopper then it allows for a more flexible approach for the consumer but may cause more problems for the co-op who must predict usage and can lead to wastage. However, some co-ops who link in with food initiative networks benefit from daily fresh purchases and bulk discounts.

In some of the peripheral housing estates local traders may perceive local co-ops as competition (even though they may be stocking items such as fruit and vegetables which are unavailable or of poor quality and highly priced in the locality ).

Wider issues Some co-ops have also produced recipe books (e.g. Ferguslie Women’s Food Poverty Group) which not only gave recipes but looked at diet issues such as price surveys and information about additives. This book was used as a model in some C.W.S. promotion material and the group were consulted and involved in that process.

Some initiatives are also involved with education and research into community food issues for example one group has been involved in producing a pack for community cafes and has also produced a report on food issues including attitudes to food , access and transport issues and makes an attempt to demystify some of the current jargon and consumer confusion around food labelling and nutritional information.

There is clearly a degree of frustration at a wider strategic level over the perception of food issues. One discussant made the point that while there may be some key supporters there seems a general lack of support within local authorities to develop a food policy and bring together key stake holders to develop ideas and practical initiatives for sustainable food economies. It is recognised that whilst food co-ops may provide a range of useful measures and experiences they are at a very small scale level. The potential does exist for planners to be involved for example in negotiating community gains as a requisite for siting large store, however to achieve this type of representation they must become aware of the food issues affecting disadvantaged groups within society.

Issues for policy and practice raised by the group

• Communities need clear, accessible information as to the advantages and disadvantages of different co-operative structures to meet their needs. This would include information about bulk buying schemes, food co-operatives and community enterprises. Likewise, there needs to be very clear guidelines as to potential for voluntary initiatives and enterprise initiatives. This type of information could usefully be described in an updated manual (tool-kit).
• People want decent shopping facilities locally that offer good quality food at prices they can afford. Identifying ways of generating good local shopping facilities that are not perceived as second rate but offer excellent service provision and local employment is important.
• Working with the retailer sector offers many opportunities such as the provision of training in retailing and discount wholesaling arrangement
• At a wider strategic level local authorities are in a position to encourage cross sectoral co-operation to address issues of accessing affordable foods. A comprehensive review of local food provision could inform the development of local food policy and form the basis of one of the indicators of a healthy community.

3.3 Mobile initiatives

(Small Group Discussion Two held in Edinburgh 3 attendees)

Contemporary themes raised within the group

Background One response to extend the range and availability of food choices are mobile food initiatives which concentrate on bringing food into the locality or into peoples homes.

Some mobile initiatives supply a number of food co-ops and bulk buy groups in areas of disadvantage. One of the projects had become involved in serving an older peoples club, the hospital and the school as well as trading within the designated areas. It had also offered to provide cost price fresh fruit and veg to a local trader (the offer had not been taken up).

Mobile initiatives fall into two major categories; those that provide a shopping and delivery service and those that are mobile vans selling largely fruit and vegetable produce. They have been set up in a variety of ways and operate through a number of organisations including local volunteers, health promotions and voluntary organisations. A very distinct advantage of the mobile initiatives is that they get food out to people. One respondent made the point that there may be scope for retailers to operate mobile services to allow people living in socially disadvantaged areas more access to a range of goods. Equally the impact of providing an alternative shopping venue may give people food choices without the hassles involved in going shopping ; using costly, infrequent transport, dragging small children, having a tight budget and limited carrying capacity. For the elderly and housebound a delivery service opens up a greater range of food choices without the worry of how and who is going to get the shopping and also an opportunity for social contact.

The benefits of such initiatives are hard to formally evaluate. In making fruit and vegetables more accessible, it seems likely that uptake is likely to increase. It is more difficult to assess the contribution to well-being made through social contact.

Shopping and Delivery

Aims One delivery scheme was initiated following a survey amongst older people that identified two clear issues

” the increasing cost of weekly shopping and the inconvenience of obtaining it”

Service One discussant described the development of a personalised door to door delivery service aimed at more vulnerable members of the older community. Now in its third year the project anticipates moving into meeting the shopping need of socially disadvantaged groups in the wider rural area within a ten mile radius of the project. As the scheme has grown and developed the volunteers also arrange seasonal shopping trips for their customers, so that they can experience supported shopping. Apart from the paid co-ordinator all staff are volunteers. They operate a weekly shopping scheme with orders being collected one day and the shopping returned the next. Members pay an annual membership fee of £1 and a delivery charge of £1.

The delivery scheme is clearly expanding and has over a hundred members with plans to extend the service and indeed promote and support the development of other similar initiatives in the area.

Food Supplies Purchases were made from three main supermarkets and included frozen and fresh goods. In one case operaing in aremote rural area the project worked with a specifc retailer with the retailer supplying the stock and the project organising delivery.

Funding was an ongoing issue for most of the projects. The delivery scheme had attracted considerable funding from the Lottery and other trusts but saw themselves moving towards self sufficiency, although there are clearly very large outlays for a vehicle and co-ordinator. Other projects were on limited funding from health board and voluntary organisation and would no doubt be reviewed. Many of the projects relied on volunteer commitment for selling the goods, driving the van or shopping and delivering the food.Volunteers were given training in food handling hygiene, bookkeeping and in handling and transporting frozen foods

Charitable status The acquisition of charitable status was seen as vitally important for the delivery system, not only did it give them exemption from most forms of direct taxation but status and credibility

“a charity registration number is seen as a stamp of approval which reassures funders and other supporters”

Co-ops however cannot register as charities because they are friendly societies

Relations In one area, potential users of the mobile resource had been identified through a survey. However the group wanted to expand its user base and to those ends registered with social services with a view to helping older people who were outwith the border line for support. While there has been a limited referral to date the group is now registered as being able to provide domicillary care. They see great potential in being able to provide shopping support to older people currently receiving home helps and argue that if they were to provide the shopping service to these people that would free up home help time to help these people more effectively in their homes and also provide an additional layer of social contact between the volunteers and the older people. One disadvantage to voluntary groups registering with the social work department is the cost, estimated at £100. While police checks are not required by law it is in the volunteers interests to take up a voluntary check but for this the volunteer must pay £10!

Networking One delivery scheme is also involved in the Dumfries and Galloway Food Initiative Network and through this process have located two people able to use sign language to communicate with two of their users. Members of another group will visit some of the older housebound members and do some shopping. It is also clear that the volunteers develop strong relationships with their customers and provide other help if needed.

Mobile Vans

Aims Mobile vans are seen as a recent introduction and concentrate largely on sales of fruit and vegetables and operate in designated areas of social disadvantage which includes some of the former mining villages in the Lothian area and Edinburgh housing schemes. In addition to catering for member groups and casual trade the projects also increasingly supply schools, nurseries, hospitals and older peoples homes with produce being sold at or near cost price. These services use a mixture of paid and voluntary labour.

Funding The mobile vans have grown as a practical response by health promotions and voluntary organisations to the difficulties people experience in obtaining fresh fruit and vegetables at an affordable price. While development workers are employed for the initial phases of establishing the projects there appeared to be a desire to see these projects operating on their own over a period of time.

The staff in the vans actively encourage and promote healthier options by providing tasting sessions and special promotions.

Vans The most critical element of all the mobile initiatives was the acquisition of a van and the necessity to budget for future capital outlay on vehicles and the constant maintenance and running costs.

In one case the van was bought through the health board while in another it was purchased through the joint sponsorship of several agencies. One project commented on the need to get the most out of the van and to utilise the resource efficiently as possible., particularly when the van is taxed and insured for a year whether it is used one, two or seven days a week. It was also noted that the cost of petrol was higher in rural areas. Another constraint was the limited amount of stock a van is able to hold. One discussant commented that it was necessary at one event to leave inorder to restock the van.

Publicity They provide a very clear shopping service and people are able to buy easily, with the choice of goods being readily displayed. One method for attracting custom particularly in the more rural locations was to have the van parked in a particular site, like the school playground or near a doctors surgery. The vans that had been operating longest were also seen to provide their own publicity and would be immediately recognisable as the fruit and veg van.

Some of the smaller rural locations didn’t attract so much custom as there were fewer people about, whereas it was easier in other disadvantaged areas (e.g. urban settings) where there were more people. Also the further the van travelled the fewer the places that could be visited particularly when the project was dependent on part time staff and part-time volunteers. In most cases the vans carried two staff a mix of volunteers and paid staff. This was seen as a good and necessary number for both smooth operation and security.

Supplies generally came from the fruit and vegetable market and some local growers, while one project was still in the early stages of setting up a good supply system.

Street Traders The discussants mentioned two main ways in which the mobile vans operated. One was with a street traders license which allows vans to sell directly on the street and potentially expanded the number of places that could be visited. A major obstacle for operating in this way was the administrative time in making the application for the license and that it is the driver of the van who is licensed not the project , so that if a driver leaves - the license goes too.The other approach was one where the van operated under the umbrella of a food project and therefore users would pay a token membership fee that was immediately recouped in the first shopping basket.

Training is required for volunteers and paid staff and could involve driving, food handling/hygiene, book keeping, socking, marketing and business development skills.

Issues for policy and Practice raised by the group.

• It appears that people feel comfortable buying food from vans and see them as reputable suppliers. While these vans are currently operated through the public and voluntary sector there is perhaps potential in furthering discussion with the bigger retailers as to how service could be developed in areas of social disadvantage or remote locations.
• There may be some advantages of social services linking with and providing funding for mobile delivery systems that would allow home helps to be home helps not shoppers.
• Research needs to be conducted into the sustainability and economic viability of mobile shopping outlets and delivery schemes.

3.4 Breakfast bar initiatives

(Small Group Discussion Three held in Glasow 7 attendees)

Contemporary themes raised within the group

Background Breakfast clubs and bars for children appear to have developed fairly widely throughout the country in the last 3-4 years (1994- ) and more so in the last 18 months (1996- ). The numbers using these breakfast initiatives daily carried from 12-20 in a church based club, 20-25 in a youth cafe, 40 in a primary school and 100-150 in secondary schools. Respondents from the larger ventures said there were no

“No problem attracting custom”

Aims The context within which the discussions took place related to breakfast provision being developed in response to a perceived needs to provide some (any) nourishment for children prior to starting classes, improved dietary intake (better options than fizzy drinks and sweets ), an opportunity to increase uptake of youth information service and for supervision of children who may not have parents or carers available (or because they choose to hang around street corners).

In Scotland, much of the on-going work in the area of breakfast bars is of a pilot nature aimed at assessing issues of provision, development and usage. Discussion on format followed individual accounts of personal workplace experience. It became claer during the course of discussions that a range of starting points were used with some duplication in terms of project research (e.g. venues)

Venue Identifying the setting for actual provision appeared to be one of the first stages in the development process. Three main settings were identified namely: church premises, schools and community facilities. A number of the projects had tried several locations before settling on a final venue but had met with difficulties from key people such as caretakers and local school staff. One educational catering service are currently running 4 secondary school based pilot schemes (as self-service bars) with a view to extending breakfast clubs throughout the city. This strategy appears to be related to overall provision of meals in school, enabling facilities and staff to be more fully utilised.

Staffing has been a major issue for some projects, particularly because of the need for food preparation or supervision from as early as 7.15a.m. In one case paid staff were employed but the small number of weekly hours (10 per week) affected benefit payments and was not financially attractive. Where catering was supplied by the council, the staff were already local employees with an extension to their contracts. Volunteer labour was often used, including mothers and church members. In some cases, volunteers were responsible for purchasing, preparing and serving food as well as providing play/educational activities, supervising behaviour and dealing with storage, tidying and cleaning. In others cases volunteers collected money from children, supervised activities and games and teeth brushing, whilst catering staff dealt with food matters.

Establishing good communication between children, parents, volunteers and catering staff is perceived as very important. Local agreements between catering staff and volunteers operating on the same project were vital inorder to deal with problems if staff were unable to turn up and emergency procedures were required e.g. stock cupboard. This is particularly the case if volunteers are unauthorised to use local authority kitchen facilities. Such situations may also involve janitorial staff and head teachers. There are also potential training opportunities for volunteers to tap into the local authority in service training schemes such as food handling and hygiene. To some extent existing Schools Nutrition Action Groups (SNAGS) were a useful basis for communication but did require education to work in partnership with catering with parents and a

“Need to talk about whole school whole day approach to food”

Menus Examples of set menus: fruit juice, bacon roll and fresh fruit, tea/coffee

fresh fruit juice, choice of cereal milk, toast and fruit,

Catering services tended to concentrate on the cold meal with individual items such as box of cereal and carton of milk as the units of purchase. In one case the club had been using cocoa pops and chocolate spread as the basic breakfast but a research project evaluating the impact of dietary intervention on the children’s food choices demonstrated that it was possible to introduce children to a range of food options. For example, after initial moaning s and groaning about the withdrawal of diluting juices and replacement with fruit juice, high sugar cereals replaced by medium fibre, low sugar cereals, white bread largely replaced by wholemeal bread (with chocolate spread) small and increased fruit supply , small , but sustained dietary changes had occurred.

The youth cafe were donated a coffee machine and introduced cafe au lait and cappuccino and a variety of flavoured syrups. Generally this was thought to be useful by encouraging increase in milk consumption, presenting a new culinary experience and possibly reducing sugar by providing an alternative to the fizzy drink, alcapop and alcohol culture . The youth cafe is very much in line with the development in the US of coffee bars for young people that present an “alternative” venue and culture. At a wider level, the vegetarian theme days run by the coffee bar have been very successful, again indicating the willingness of children to try alternatives.

Most breakfast clubs had tried to offer fruit but with mixed success. Fresh fruit left in baskets or offered as a take away option for snack time had less of an uptake than fruit washed, peeled, cut up and presented in smaller portion sizes. Amongst the younger kids individual attention to peel and cut up an apple led to other children asking for the same.

Overall, there was definite consensus on the need for compromise in food provision between the healthiest options and what would be consumed. Such tactics encouraged young people in to the breakfast provision service and then started to present a range of options were likely to be more successful than going in as the “food police”.

Extending to lunch -time issues there has been some discussion by a educational catering service about bringing in fast food bars with “meal deals” to introduce healthy option at reduced prices and making chips more expensive. There was an impression that this type of service was more in line with current catering trends and offered an opportunity to keep children using the school meals service, provide healthy options but use a format which fits with contemporary youth culture.

Breakfast clubs provide an an opportunity to improve the image of school catering. One local authority catering firm are working with Kellogg’s on LETS DO BREAKFAST Logo using a modern art approach including leaflets and promotions prizes for comments for what kids would like to see on the menus. Ideas include changing the image of the school dining hall, localising the name. These types of ideas give the kids a sense of involvement and ownership, which may also help to foster behavioural change skills to be able to confront situations when

“You are the only one in the group eating salad and your mates are eating burgers “.

Tuck Shops Most schools run tuck shops which provide funds for school projects. Many operate before school and during the school breaks. Some also go around the classrooms selling sweets although it was also reported that in some areas fruit at breaks has been introduced. Very few (if any) were reported to offer healthier alternatives to fizzy drink, chocolate, sweets and savoury snacks.

In some cases catering services have offered to sell fruit to the tuck shops at cost price on a sale or return basis so that the tuck shop can sell it in small amounts but the offer is largely seen to “be a hassle”.

One educational catering service have considered rationalising tuck shops and giving a proportion of the profit to the school funds. Economically, it might make sense to do so as teachers or parents are often buying tuck shop items from local cash and carry when there are opportunities to benefit from the centralised purchasing power of the catering services.

Food Supplies Supplying food for the breakfast provision also necessitated skills, time and labour. One educational catering operated bars were using more central bulk purchasing from suppliers but the smaller groups were using local cash and carry, ASDA and Kwik Save. One group was also using the local food co-op to buy fruit .

Groups had also tapped into retail supplier promotions like Kellogg’s national breakfast week and in one group parents were saving coupons and had received £50 of cereal. In another project a dietitian had supplied the group with surplus boxes from the national breakfast week promotion. Groups reported on varying successes in dealing with the big companies and getting free trial supplies. There was some discussion as to why Kellogg’s were promoting their cereal bowl through Toys R Us gold card and would have liked to have seen this tied into breakfast bars that were actually using cereals rather than a toy company.

Costs Like many community food projects funding was a major problem area. In all cases children pay for breakfast ranging from 25p to 78p per day, but this does not represent the total cost of food and labour required for provision. In all cases some form of subsides were involved. In the church based club, donations had been received from the parish through talks at women’s guilds etc and more recently through a grant from Children in Need. In the primary school based projects a grant had been received from The Scottish Community Diet Project which had enabled children to pay only 50p per head whilst 28p had come from the grant. In clubs operated by one local authority he price was 78p for a set meal. It is clear that the the independent projects will face perennial funding problems to maintain a subsidised service.

The educational catering service supported the notion of Food Value Vouchers which could give those on pre paid meals the option of using their voucher at breakfast rather than at lunch time. Ideally people would like to see the pre paid ticket applying to both meals. Currently the whole ticket has to be redeemed in one go and will not allow for kids having part at breakfast and lunch menu.

It was commented that the uptake of lunchtime meal tickets is 60-65% but that in areas of disadvantage that might be as high as 85-90%. The lack of uptake in some cases was to do with the stigma, also the handling of the situation e.g. kids on pre paid tickets in separate queues.

To allow some flexibility in costs to the children, a number of projects were starting to itemise menus (individually charged items) rather than providing a set menu.

Target group and Marketing In general, school based projects divide into primary and secondary school aged children. The clubs run in Glasgow primary schools are an independent venture whilst those run by the educational catering firm are specifically in secondary schools. The youth cafe targets teenagers and the church based project accepts children ranging in age from 4 to 16. Clearly the use of these projects is not solely about dietary provision but addresses issues relating to peer cultures, youth identity and family and community values.

The use of breakfast facilities by older children reflect a “bigger market”, an age when milk subsides do not apply and a need for different supervisory requirements (less related to physical safety). For older children, breakfast clubs also provide an opportunity to create a sense of involvement and ownership and in some cases an opportunity to “talk to someone” other than family. For teenagers, there were also examples of teaching staff being available for supported study, or facilities for private study. In general there was a clear expectation that, if treated with respect, children would treat the place with respect and would supervise themselves.

For younger children, supervision is required for food choices, encouragement to eat and try new tastes. Additionally, supervisors are needed for safety, social contact and to help foster relationships . Some of the clubs also provided activities before school such as drawing and games. There was some discussion about the legal responsibility for children attending breakfast clubs out of school. In one case the volunteer walked the younger children to school after breakfast. However, it is unclear who is responsible for children’s safety if they break their journey to school.

Evaluation The measurable health benefits of breakfast bars are exceedingly difficult to assess. All projects were involved in running some form of evaluation. Food diaries were used in the cafe project using a group from the cafe at the local school and a control group and trying to assess what dietary changes had occurred, these were conducted over a two week period and two intervals. One project in Dundee is part of a pilot study to test dietary survey techniques in this setting and has shown a need to employ labour intensive survey methods for accurate data collection.

All the discussants in the focus group held the view that breakfast increases concentration and improved cognitive performance. Anecdotally, in one Glasgow school free breakfast was offered to children sitting exams, and it was reported that actual exam attendance had significantly increased with a knock on effect in exam results. Teachers were also being consulted as to whether there had been any changes in the classroom, like performance and concentration.

Wider Issues Oral health was also included in some projects with mixed reaction. For example, a Glasgow based project in a primary school supervised teeth brushing and had brushes and paste for the children . In another case volunteers had tried to introduce teeth brushing but unsuccessfully with comments like

“What would I do with that then ?” or “What would I want to do that for?”

Smoking was also an issue that had to be confronted by many projects. In the independent coffee bar with a management committee of young people smoking has been restructured to one area but there continues to be a problem with older kids spending breakfast money on cigarettes. It is particularly difficult for an individual project to do anything about this when they must go with the decisions of the young people and cannot break confidentiality by informing parents.

Issues for policy and practice raised by the group

• drawing together relevant information and guidelines to produce a “tool kit” for communities wishing to initiate a breakfast bar
• evaluating the potential for schools to deliver breakfast provision. This seems to be an area for further work both in terms of evaluation of the process and outcome of delivery. Guidelines for such work are indicated.
• Further work needs to take an integrated whole school-whole day approach to identifying an agreed agenda that meets the needs of individual communities. The issue of tuck shops needs to be addressed with some urgency if real progress on dietary health in schools is to be made. The current fragmented approach to ownership, operation, content and use for tuck-shops, breakfasts, lunches and vending machines in schools undermines co-operative efforts by parents, pupils, education and catering staff to work towards a health promoting school.
• The costs of breakfast food provision needs to be explored in greater depth. accessing centralised catering supplies through local councils would greatly facilitate food supplies and costs
• The nutritional value of foods and drinks provided should be an important consideration Pilot work in Dundee is exemplar in demonstrating that children will eat healthy choices at no extra costs. This work could form the basis for menu design ensuring some form of nutritional standards with flexibility.

3.5 Cooking skills initiatives

(Small Group Discussion four held in Glasgow 2 attendees plus telephone interview)

Contemporary themes raised within the group

Background A working knowledge of basic food preparation techniques offers consumers the opportunity to control the nutritional content of basic meals (e.g the option to add or not add fat/sugar salt as opposed to processed foods which already have this added) and the flexibility to meet the needs and demands of different family members (e.g. adapting basic home cooking for weaning). Practical cookery skills also mean that consumers need be less dependent on a limited range of processed foods and ready meals available in small retail outlets (particularly in urban estates) by providing the option to cook main meals or accompaniments from basic ingredients occasionally (or even regularly). The confidence, skills and products of cooking can also be an empowering experience for women at the home level assisting the development and maintenance of self-esteem, providing it can be demonstrated that the value of cooking outweighs the perceived drudgery. At a financial level, home cooking may offer some significant savings (although initial outlay can be perceived as a threat if new equipment is required).

AimsThe discussants in the small group meetings had identified a specific need for cooking skills classes in their communities. In one example this emerged from a recognition that skills had been lost by the younger generation and in effect a need to share skills with older people. This resulted in bringing together a group of young mothers from one organisation with a group of older woman from a community health project. The group jointly identified the need for presentation /cookery skills, food handling and hygiene. In other cases participants were sought out by health professionals from a GP practice when Health Visitors had noted a desire by mothers to know more about the practical aspects of feeding children.

The stages described by the participants indicated that similar research paths had been taken in terms of finding venues, designing the content, identifying recipes, food hygiene issues and equipment. Clearly some individualistic approaches were used to suit local community resources although all had been aware of the “Get Cooking” pack (NFA).

Venue Initial steps in developing classes involve finding suitable premises. These tended to be locally based community facilities such as village halls, church halls, community health project bases and community centres These settings were often familiar to the participants (potentially less threatening) and could accommodate a crèche for the children close at hand. There was a strong impression that free, good quality childcare was essential to the success of any cooking class (and also provides an opportunity for a tasting panel )!

“If you’ve not got somewhere for the kids that will stop young mothers coming”

In some cases the numbers of participants were restricted by the size of the accommodation and facilities. Most premises had no storage facilities, thus extra tutor time was required for setting and clearing up.

Staffing Apart from some initial skills sharing most project brought in a trained tutor , appropriately qualified with practical experience of cooking food. In one case the group had sought out specific trained personnel to improve their presentation skills and understanding of food hygiene and handling. There had been instances where special support was required for participants with literacy and numeracy difficulties.

Content The Course content appear to have been designed jointly by tutors and participants. In one instance the group was formed following a focus group discussion with a group of people that explored some of the barriers to cooking and looked at ideas for developing the content as well as timing and venue.

Recipes for the courses varied. In one case the groups used a ring binder pack designed by health promotions that included food safety and hygiene tips, temperature conversions and measurements with recipes that were simple and economic. This was seen as a pilot pack and would be reviewed. In another case a recipe booklet had been devised by the group with the help of a Dundee student, this had been professionally produced and circulated to interested people. In another case the recipes had been based on previous discussions held in a focus group which emphasised peoples choices to have quick, cheap simple to prepare foods that would suit the whole family or basic dishes that could be adapted easily e.g. mince as shepherds pie , spaghetti bolognaise, burgers or risotto. People were also keen to adapt food to suit weaning infants, toddlers and children.

While it was commented that people often reported collecting recipes and watching cookery T.V programmes for entertainment most never made the recipes as they were

“too complicated and frilly and expensive”.

Not many people seem to have a basic store cupboard and one discussant said that the cost and outlay on ingredients was a real barrier for many people particularly if the ingredients were seen to be more expensive than buying a ready made, guaranteed success and familiar tasting meal. It also often took a lot of convincing that the bought ingredients may make more than one meal.

Food Supplies Food for class use was generally purchased from a supermarket in quantities suitable for the session but it was felt there might be an opportunity to tap into local food co-ops where they existed (providing they could get access to the ingredients).

In the project where ASDA had donated food (for the class and for home) allowed people to try the recipes at home without the risk of spending money on experimenting. Another group were able to take food home, saving time on cooking later and also enabling the family to try out the recipe. The women were then able to assess whether it was worth making the meal again for their family at no cost to themselves.

Equipment In addition to basic premises, equipment was another major consideration. The emphasis was generally on basic cooking skills requiring limited equipment that would reflect the participants home circumstances. In one case the participants were keen to do baking but the table top cooker was a little restrictive as were the participants comments about their own cookers that were broken or unreliable or had rings or ovens that “jist dinna work”. The use of blenders and mixers was avoided and recipes were designed to need the minimum of pots and pans. One obstacle to people cooking was also their perceived lack of equipment

“can’t make pasta if you don’t have a colander to drain it”

Weights and measures were also given in spoons and cups, mugs and numbers to encourage people to feel confident to cook without scales. There was also a feeling that school s relied on sophisticated equipment rather than encouraging adaptability and flexibility to suit the living circumstances people find themselves in. Some projects built up a box of basic transportable equipment, other were given or bought small cooker , microwave or borrowed from the local college.

Costs Funding was a problem with no obvious source of funding other than creative partnership approaches. All participants attended the courses free of charge. The Primary Care Development fund covered the majority of courses in one area but this was topped up by local sponsorship for equipment and food. This funding was for 6 months and targeted at 10 designated areas of deprivation. Health promotion assistants were employed to run the courses. In one case a fundholding G.P. provided the cost of transporting the women to the community centre, the crèche and the premises whilst ASDA provided free ingredient for the classes (and also ‘goody bags’ which replicated the ingredient used and allowed the women to repeat the recipes at home) and tutoring was provided free by an experienced mature student.

For further developments in the cookery skills areas funding would become a major issue. While pilot projects may arouse enthusiasm and support, funding is limited and the target groups are largely people who are unable to contribute financially. Funding was a universal issue which had been successfully addressed by the current participants but was percieved as one limitation to developing this type of work further. The group identified a range of financial problems (tutor, premises with power, equipment, transport and creche facilities) but not the soloutions!

Recruiting Particiapnts and providing support tended to involve the collaborative efforts of a number of professionals. Word of mouth was seen as the best way to attract people and that once a class had successfully run then it would be more likely to attract further participants

“it would work by word of mouth now, people having talked to the neighbours know what to expect and know what it is about”.

Most classes ran during the day in 2 hour sessions but even within a target group it requires a lot of persistence,support and encouragement to get people to attend groups and in some cases a support worker was also needed. Regular attendance is something of a problem. Many of the participants lead fairly fragmented lives and routines were not always easy to follow. Sick children or medical (or other) appointments added to difficulties. It also takes a few sessions for the individuals to become a group and feel relaxed. In other cases, it was recognised that young people wanted more than could be offered by this type of course and wanted to learn commercial food skills. Discussants also felt that within some of the groups there was a real fear of cooking, freezing and defrosting raw and cooked foods and that people were confused by diffuse and mixed messages about food they picked up through the media.

Some of the courses have also included shopping basket surveys or shopping trips.

There were issuers raised about who organises classes. For example, in one case it was felt that health promotions was seen as a middle class organisation and that for participants to come to classes relied heavily on the partnership and mediation of the health visitors and community education.

Target Group Participants in classes were predominantly low income and often lone parents. The discussants were also aware of cookery classes aimed at the homeless, people about to leave institutional care and return to the community, youth groups and children. One discussant felt that cooking skills courses would be of benefit to members of food co-ops who are maybe well positioned to pass on tips and recipes in a familiar environment. Some of these classes take place in informal situations or under the management of social work or community education.

Clearly other family members played an important role in household feeding decisions and ultimately women reported frustration at presenting compromises that all people will eat, catering for different schedules and agendas. Eating together as a family was often seen as problematic in terms of getting everybody together at one time, eating in front of the TV and lack of table and /or table settings. It was more difficult to weigh up how successful the courses were for the whole families eating habits. Some commented that while some family members were keen to try and eat selected dishes again others were entrenched in their eating patterns and loath to move from pies beans and chips.

“you can show them the skills and give them the skills but you can’t force them to use them...but they have got knowledge and some choice”

There was quite a lot of discussion about the target groups in this case largely women . There was a unanimous feeling that men boys children and families should also be targeted. Target groups were seen also to be widowers and young men about to leave home. However it was felt that even in the last days of the twentieth century it was difficult to overcome the gender divides e.g. young boys still telling you cooking and washing up is women’s work. Families were seen as an ideal target group. It was recognised however, that knowledge gained in the cookery classes was often shared with friend and neighbours and passed on through local networks.

Evaluation Measuring the impact of cookery classes crosses areas of educational effectiveness, cookery skills, self-esteem, social interaction and should not be viewed solely as a dietary intervention.

There appeared to be quite a consensus that participants in the cookery skills classes were generally more confident in their abilities and in themselves as a result of being involved. One group had undertaken formal pre- and post- intervention questionnaires which showed an increase in perceived levels of cooking skills and confidence, a small increase in knowledge on cookery knowledge and some positive signs of change in eating habits (Valentine, 1998).

One group had become involved in large scale catering with much greater confidence. In another case participation in the course had given a women the confidence to apply for a job in catering which she had been successful in attaining.

Accreditation Courses were mostly aiming for an informal and hands on approach. There were instances cited of some courses which had led to the participants taking national qualifications in Food Handling and Hygiene. In some cases the courses gave a certificate of attendance to the participants.

Clearly, cookery classes alone will not solve all dietary problems. What they do appear to provide is some sense of social interaction, practical skills gain (for use in both domestic and possibly catering situations), knowledge and focus on food and diet and an opportunity to widen culinary horizons. In many ways they prepare the route for enabling participants to make more healthy choices in environments where such options are often rare.

Issues for policy and practice raised by the group

• The aims, objectives and content of cooking skills courses varies considerably, reflecting individual group needs, but there do seem to be some core principals that could be usefully highlighted for all classes e.g. preparation and increased use of vegetables, raising confidence and self-esteem, basic budgetary issues. It would be timely to pull this together systematically into a manual or guidebook. This publication could also inform users about local food provision (food co-ops as well as retailers), possible premises and funding opportunities.
• Funding cookery skills initiatives remain problematic. Two possible opportunities might be explored in a national manner. The first is through retailers and whether a specific company may wish to consider funding a national project. The second is through employment initiatives and skill seekers opportunities.
• Can food skills course be made more attractive by certification which could be useful for employment prospects and domestic benefits? This approach might encourage attendance although there needs to be a flexible approach to this for people who find a regular commitment difficult.

3.6 Rural dimensions

(Small Group Discussion Four held in Dumfries 7 attendees)

Contemporary themes raised within the Group

Background To identify specific issues and developments in a predominantly rural part of the country, it was decided to explore community food work in Dumfries and Galloway. This decision was based principally on the observation that there seemed to be a great deal of community activity in this part of the country and because of the recent establishment of a Dumfries and Galloway Food Initiatives Network.

Food Initiative Network The recently established Dumfries and Galloway Food Initiatives Network includes many grassroots, hands-on, food related community based food initiatives of which 13-14 are particularly active. In total well over 250 organisations or individuals have been identified for mailing purposes. Whilst the organisations participating in the network are spread throughout the area, many are concentrated in Dumfries and Stranraer (75 miles apart) and the Network truly tries to link town and country. It is most visible in the form of a regular newsletter and an annual seminar series is planned. The Network provides a communication forum for people with common interests but also has the potential to promote debate on issues and inform policy makers.

Local markets and shopping The whole of Dumfries and Galloway is classified as a rural district and as such suffers from issues like higher prices for basic commodities, poor transport, lack of employment opportunities, poor shopping facilities and restricted consumer choices. There is a perception that “food co-ops are not viable in rural areas” because of a feasibility study carried out few years ago which showed that there was of a lack of local suppliers and perceived stigma attached to using a co-op (which might not be so obvious in a more anonymous urban area). On the other hand, as an agricultural area there is great potential to develop markets for locally grown products, and the potential to stimulate local production including allotment and garden supplies. There is also a perception that people are resourceful and creative in rural areas. In addition it is clear that an informal network of communication exists and may be used for the benefit of community development initiatives.

Distribution Network One area of development for the Network is to create closer links between growers and consumers which involve local people. For example, Dumfries Community Development Challenge Project were at the early stages with a group, identifying a piece of land assessing local interest and developing ideas for a venture on alternative land use (possibly linking with The Women’s Environmental Network. ). Although, it is recognised that there may be scope for local markets, local produce diversification and berry production (with benefits for work experience and tourism) there is a need to develop a food distribution network in this part of the country to facilitate grower-consumer activities.

It appears that the active members of the Network are concerned with community food initiatives and there are few links at present with retailers, local authorities and other parts of the food chain which is probably vital for policy development. The Network has the potential to develop strategic links with policy makers and this will be explored.

Local Agenda 21 It is recognised that local authorities have great potential to assist the development of community food initiatives but individual departments within local councils often respond differently to requests. For example, in planning departments it is recognised that creative approaches and ideas relating to local food projects may be possible through Local Agenda 21 whereas social services departments may be wary about allowing access to housebound people who stand to benefit from delivery projects. In some respects this is a reflection of departmentalisation of issues (e.g. health, economic development, planning) by policy makers in sectoral terms with poor or no consultation arrangements. In general, there is a need to develop active partnerships to maximise resources as promoted in the Scottish Office report Partnerships in Rural areas (1995).

Funding issues were identified as a particular problem by the network. For example many projects never get any further than pilot schemes no matter how good. There is a recognition that a development worker is needed to ensure that there is a strategic approach to funding in Dumfries and Galloway, to identify and disseminate information on funding opportunities, to stimulate developments, to support local volunteers and to liase at a strategic/policy level.

Much of the discussants reported spending excessive amounts of time in seeking funding. There are specific rural opportunities such as Rural Partnership Budgets, but these are for training only. Rural Challenge, European Leader 2 funding have also been sought. However, there are no real industry sources based in Dumfries and Galloway to approach for funding.

Training funding, business and development advice have all been identified as necessary to progress work in this rural area but few offers of help have been forthcoming.

The Local Enterprise Company seems to have a narrow perception and interpretation of economic development and does not have a social remit (unlike HIE) It was also felt that local businesses could potentially get involved in training provision for voluntary groups and help them with grant applications but this had not happened.

Issues for Policy and Practice raised by the group

• Overall, The Dumfries and Galloway Food Initiative Network provides an excellent base structure for identifying issues and ways forward for community food initiatives at local level.
• The need for links with local businesses, the local enterprise company, the local authority and other policy makers seems a fundamental route to progress.
• In addition further networking with other members of the food chain could help to shape, develop and expand local community food initiatives for the benefits of the wider community.
• Local people need to be able to access locally grown food.

3.1 Methods

During the Autumn of 1997, The Scottish Community Diet Project conducted a readership survey of Fare Choice inorder to identify the main areas of work being undertaken by community food projects. During the course of the current work a summary of the SCDP work became available. This information provided a sketch of current activities and enabled major categories to be identified. The information collected included data on the types of projects that groups are currently involved in or considering being involved in and indicates a willingness to participate in discussion on various themes (Table 1)

Table 1 - FARECHOICE readership survey

Note these categories are not mutually exclusive any one food project may be involved in several activities

Subject	Currently Worked On	Planning to work on
Food Co-ops (broad range of items)	22	6
Food Co-ops (all or mainly fruit and veg)	32	11
Grow your own schemes	7	13
Cooking Skills courses	34	24
Shopping Skills Courses	17	17
Food Safety Courses	25	10
Community Cafes	28	15
Lunch Clubs	26	8
Breakfast Clubs (primary)	17	11
Breakfast Clubs (secondary)	10	7
Other School Based Activity	32	8
Mobile Initiatives (delivery)	19	5
Mobile Initiatives (selling)	19	5
Milk Token Initiatives	8	8
Breast feeding Initiatives	5	5
Weaning Initiatives	17	1
Other	21	6

On the basis of this survey it seemed appropriate to focus discussion work on the most frequently cited activities (with the exception of community cafes and lunch clubs which some preliminary work had already been undertaken). In addition, it was recognised that growing initiatives were becoming increasingly popular although little information was available on these.

The following categories of work were identified because of the frequency of these activities, a perception of growth in these categories and the need to encompass growing initaitives into the dimension of food projects.

Cooking Skills, Breakfast Bars/Clubs, Food Co-ops (mainly fruit and vegetables) Mobile initiatives and growing initiatives.

It also became apparent that a new network of community food initiatives had been established in Dumfries and Galloway and that this groups would potentially be able to highlight the obstacles and opportunities for developing community projects from a rural perspective.

To draw up a participants list for small discussion groups the Fare Choice readership survey, The Edinburgh Community Food Initiative Food Co-op list and the Dumfries and Galloway network were utilised. Potential participants were contacted by phone and invited to attend and letter confirming an invitation were sent out to those people who accepted the invitation. Participants were drawn from local authorities, health promotions, voluntary and community groups and were both paid staff and volunteers

Location (see Table 2)

Five small groups discussions were held during March

Dumfries and Galloway - rural dimensions of community food projects

Glasgow - Breakfast Bars and Cooking Skills (people from Glasgow and Dundee).

Edinburgh - Food Co-ops (mainly fruit and Veg) and Mobile Initiatives. (People from Dumfries, West Lothian, East Lothian Edinburgh, Paisley and Fife.)

A further telephone interview was conducted on cooking skills.

The specific areas for discussion within the groups related to issues which influenced the maintenance and development of voluntary run, agency run and agency supported projects, identifying barriers and opportunities to progress. While this might have included ; funding sources, attracting users, supporting volunteers, business development, training and evaluation, participants were asked to identify what they saw as the issues and the ways forward. In practice, common themes were identified by the group including funding, staffing and accessing supplies. All groups focused on the category of work under discussion largely because there were a range of workers present from those involved in raising funds to volunteer staff thus focusing in on the actual working operations and what could assist at ground level was always central to the group. The discussions ran between one hour and one hour and a half.

Discussion of Methods

It was clear from original briefings that information obtained must be useful for strategic development work in the community food area but should also enable participants to gain from the research experience to encourage further interchange.. Thus discussion groups had been identified as the preferred method (with the availability of a small budget). These were designed to foster sharing and exchange between projects as well as between practitioners and researchers, precise structures to discussions were therefore inappropriate and topics were identified within the groups. This method varied from previous work undertaken in 1996 (with a considerably higher budget) which used individual interviews with 21 people at “managerial” level whereas current work was aimed at finding a method suitable for groundwork staff as well as development staff and utilised the time and efforts of 23 people. Individual interviews on this occasion would not have allowed for interactive work.

Ongoing work in England funded by The Joseph Rowentree Foundation has utilised a combination of methods (individual interviews, group work within projects and group work with specific categories of staff) to ascertain “Why food projects work” and will complement the current work described here.

Options for methods are clearly determined by budgets and purposes of the research.

Discussants were initially contacted by telephone and then date and time of appointments confirmed by letter. There were some practical difficulties in organising the discussion groups (location, distance, travel time). The Fare Choice readership survey indicated fewer people were willing to participate in discussion groups than the number of projects listed under each theme. It was necessary to draw on wider survey and contacts listed in the publication Food in the Community (HEBS,1997).

Many of those willing to participate were paid development staff not volunteers.

It was difficult to track down some projects particularly those run by volunteers with limited opening hours.

To maximise the usefulness of the groups they were organised on a thematic basis and located in the central belt (where most CFI activity is taking place).

Some volunteers were not keen to get involved in this type of event and wanted to confine their activity to their individual group.

Due to geographical location some paid staff were unable to make such a time /travel commitment which would result in them taking a day to attend a 1 and a half hour discussion.

While we organised meetings with between 5-7 participants in some cases we had fewer people turn up (Table 2). Cooking skills in particular was poorly attended with one person calling off because of the time commitment and another due to ill-health. In one case somebody got the wrong time and came for the morning and not the afternoon. In 2 cases people stood in for people who were off sick.

It should be noted that participants in the groups had been involved with food projects for a variable length of time allowing initial experiences to be discussed alongside reflections of years of active work. This has meant that some participants responded in discussion in “a policy framework” mode rather than considering single experiences in one category of work. Reporting these policy views within the category structure has been challenging for presentation of results.

Table 2 Participants at Discussion groups

Location	Category	Number Invited	Number Attending
Dumfries and Galloway	Rural	7	7
Glasgow	Breakfast Bars	7	7
Glasgow	Cooking Skills	6	2
Edinburgh	Food Co-ops	5	4
Edinburgh	Mobile	5	3

A note of caution

The reports of these discussion groups do not claim to be an exhaustive account of all barriers and opportunities to the development of projects. The aim of the discussions was to gather relevant issues through debate and exchange and to highlight problems and opportunities to enable a general direction for policy and practitioners to be identified. Inevitably, not all issues that exist will have been discussed therefore these reports should not be read as representative of the category of work but illustrative and a starting point for identifying common ground and in some cases common routes to progress.

Likewise not all categories of work have been investigated but the current data provides sufficient common themes to map major policy issues and specific routes to progress practice within the categories studied.

The results presented in this report present full reports from the groups on which the policy and practice implications are drawn.

4. Telephone interview

4.2 Growing initiatives

Contemporary themes raised within the interviews

Background There is a strong impression that the recent surge in growing initiatives relates to increasing public awareness of food issues due to food scares, lack of confidence in the nature of food (and additives), concern over “food miles “( miles from growing area to consumption area) and wider environmental issues.

Aims Clearly a wide variety of aims and objectives are expressed through growing initiatives and these include issues of local fruit and vegetable supply (e.g. remote rural communities, provision of locally grown food, provision of organic food), use of local land which is unused (e.g. allotment schemes) work experience (e.g. mental health projects, rehabilitation schemes, community service offenders) wider community development issues (e.g. community gardens and community supported agriculture) and disillusionment with wholesaler agreements (which may lead to wastage of produce).

Getting started has involved a range of approaches including a public meeting (with the initial aim of setting up a fruit and vegetable co-op to sell rather than grow), identifying a ready market and client group, identifying target labour (community service offenders) and funding opportunities. In general the presence of a small group of committed people (often living in a rural area) with skills which include business and marketing as well as gardening and production are the vital starting point to growing initiatives.

Funding sources have included a grant from The Scottish Community Diet Project (enabling the purchase of a rotavator, two sheds, two polytunnels and other share hand tools), independent funding from shareholder members, assistance from a government grant for converting grazing to organic status, lottery funding and Rural Challenge Fund. Most projects aim to be self- funding. A number of projects described potential funding sources including Leader 2 and local authority grants.

Staffing range from volunteers with gardening experience, paid gardening administrative and bookkeeping staff Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) , shareholder work contributions, Working Weekends On Organic Farms (WOOFer) volunteers, self-employed labour and local college students. Staff need support and training and again a wide range of approaches have been utilised from a series of guest speakers for a community growing project in Shetland, informal exchange from existing staff “on the job”, newsletter networking and employing a horticulture tutor. In a well established project in the Borders, training is provided for private individuals and for New Deal employment seekers. The training is in the form of accredited courses in Cultivation and horticultural practise, vegetable growing at a field scale, fruit growing at an Orchard Scale and sustainable perennial growing (permaculture). Providing a range of training options , gives the smaller grower an opportunity to explore what the possibilities are for expanding their enterprise.

Land Growing requires land. Acquisitions have been made by using land owned by local authorities, leasing from local farmers, leasing from a local estate and property owned by a local college. Smaller ventures (e.g. 15sq metres ) report few problems but larger (aiming for 20 acres) and more established projects have run into difficulties for expansion. For example, one Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Scheme in the North of Scotland reported that they operate from 5 sites with a 364 day leasing arrangement with a number of farmers leading to rather fragmented working structure. To move from a leasing agreement to any other approach (e.g. buying land ) will in itself require a restructured approach within existing working to establish a fund raising team and agenda. The current leasing arrangements are at odds with the notion of sustainability in that the CSA cultivates the ground and then moves on and never has the opportunity to create a sustainable system. Also it is not possible to apply for Soil Association certification for organic standards. In addition to land, other costs include equipment which ranges from hand tools to tractors and other farm machinery.

Produce The actual produce varies according to the ethos and aims of the projects. All grow vegetables, and some produce only organic varieties. Some also produce soft and orchard fruits. The growing project in the Northern Isles will offer some scope for supplying the local co-op which will open once a week and operate an ordering system.

One operation in the Borders have developed a labelling scheme - The garden of Scotland brand mark. In this enterprise organic produce are sold in boxes weekly and picked up from base. The produce can be supplemented with other organic supplies.

There are concerns that for people on a low income, organic produce may be to be too expensive, with the producer having to rely on slightly higher prices to cover their costs.

Working within local communities increases the potential to establish links between the producer and consumer by involving them either directly through shared labour or in paying a share to a scheme orientated towards local sustainable organic growing. Paying in advance either annually or monthly helps to spread the risks through the membership of seasonal fluctuations in crop quantity or quality and guarantees the farmer gardener an income. A number reported that the box scheme is ideal for the small producer , it mops up any surpluses, it allows for more flexibility , variety and experimentation for the producer and gets away from the monocrop mentality of the major wholesalers.

Delivery schemes A number of projects operate box schemes such as one in the east coast which supplies around 100 hundred boxes weekly to 10-12 drop off points.

Volunteers at these drop off points co-ordinate the orders weekly and organise the payment in advance. Seasonal vegetables are supplied in two sizes - £10 and £6. Orders are received on Wednesday, picked on Thursday and delivered on Friday. When there is a shortage of their produce they buy in goods from other sources. They make every attempt to source locally and link into other local producers. They concentrate on producing salad vegetables in their polytunnels, and also operate a farm shop.

Markets Marketing and finding customers is a particular challenge in Scotland where there are virtually no local fruit and veg retail or farm markets. There are also problems related to the absence of a good distribution network for locally grown produce which is restricted to limited ram shop and veg boxes.

Motivation There is a strong distinction between those schemes that seek to be financially viable and provide employment opportunities and those which are more home grown or provide a focus or means to an end such as therapeutic or rehabilitation initiatives. Community involvement and working together was flagged as a benefit on a number of occasions. Satisfaction in producing food, making decisions about how local food should be grown and local schools involvement have all been reported as positive outcomes. It was felt that a number of projects opened the way to wider community participation and involvement and helps to “establish relationships with the people and the land”.

It appears that the benefits of growing initiatives are much wider than purely successful production. In health terms there are reported benefits through exercise and eating more vegetables. One project aims to provide relevant community experience for workers such as young offenders where this type of work has helped to foster a new interest and introduced new skills. In this case the process would appear to be more important than the outcome and the project is not a commercial venture.

Extension One project in the borders has consulted with local retailers, hoteliers and restaurants as to the type of supplies they would like to see developed locally and to ascertain their interest in buying locally.

Publicity Last year one project ran a publicity campaign on a budget of £60. This involved putting up posters in the area and a couple of adds in the local paper. In 4 weeks there membership went up from 120 to 175. Another project reported developing a clientele by word of mouth which was entirely satisfactory and avoided conflict with other producers. In most cases community involvement and networking are seen as important parts of the projects. Another project recommended community events to publicise the aims and outcomes in a fun way.

Structure There are a variety of operating structures. One group is moving from a company limited by guarantee to a new structure which will allow then charitable status and reflect the democratic base of the membership. In another case the project is set up as a community business while another is an association, and another is a project set up by a national voluntary organisation

A major outcome of growing projects are wider community benefits which are gained from working together and gaining understanding of the skills and resources in the local community. It was also reported that there may be further benefits to be had by bringing growing projects together. To date there has been very little networking of growing initiatives - an issue raised by a number of respondents (and others including urban city farmers growers groups). Given the increased interest in this area it may be timely to create and foster a growing initiatives network.

GROWING INITIATIVES - POLICY AND PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

• Growing initiatives originate from a diverse set of aims and objectives but there areas of common ground. It is timely to draw some of these interests together. One possible way forward is to organise a conference which specifically aims to address some of the common themes such as acquiring land, marketing goods, distribution networks and linking community production and consumption initiatives.
• Current evidence suggest that community based growing initiatives are becoming more common in Scotland and may benefit by a specific database and network structure to encourage the development and maintenance of existing work. This database would also link closely with community food initiatives so that local producer and consumer organisations can identify each other.
• There is clearly a need for more focused information for people and groups interested in developing growing initiatives that address all issues from getting started, funding and technical support, marketing and distribution of local produce and business development. A basic manual or guide to Getting Growing in Scotland with contacts for further information would be timely.
• There is a need for support and recognition of Community Based Enterprises from local economic development organisations. Dialogue between these agencies may be fundamental to developing local distribution networks and diversification schemes.
• There is a need to develop consumer opportunities to increase availability of locally produced food.

4.1 Methods

The Fare Choice readership Survey was the starting point for identifying growing initiatives . However, organising a group discussion on growing initiatives proved less than straight forward. While it revealed that 7 projects were actively involved in initiatives (13 respondents were interested in developing work) two of these were based in England and in another, the relevant health professional had moved.. Only one of the 7 projects had expressed a willingness to participate in a discussion group.

Whilst there were a number of agencies and groups who expressed an interest in coming to discussion groups these were dispersed throughout the whole of Scotland from Shetland to Islay, Highland to Dumfries and Galloway and there are clearly pragmatic considerations in terms of getting a far flung group together for a short time.

Projects involved in a range of growing initiatives with quite diverse aims, structures and outcomes, these include, community gardens, rehabilitation and therapeutic schemes, food co-operatives and allotments, school gardens, community supported agriculture and box schemes. While all schemes aimed to produce food , the motivation , methods and processes involved varied Some schemes were well established while others were in the process of setting up.

For these reasons it was decided to conduct telephone interviews with a selection of 5 key people who were currently actively involved in growing projects. These projects ranged in duration from a few months to well -established projects which had been running for several years

Five telephone interviews (largely booked calls of 20-40 minutes) were conducted in the middle of March and included projects in the voluntary sector, community groups, and a small business. The interviews were informal and semi structured and aimed to explore what people felt in their experience were the factors that encouraged and supported sustainable growing initiatives and what were the obstacles. The main areas touched on were getting started, getting people involved, land, funding, staffing , training, project management, equipment, outcomes, links , research and evaluation.

As in the discussion groups it is recognised that the following report will not be an exhaustive review and account of all the issues surrounding growing initiatives but acts as an indicator and highlights some of the issues from current, hands on experience

5. Conclusions

Clearly Community Food Initiatives are continuing to grow and flourish throughout Scotland. A wide range of projects are on-going and new developments are planned. The enthusiasm, experience and motivation of people in local communities in raising funds, identifying premises, finding staff and marketing services is impressive.

It is apparent that problems relating to funding (initial, continuing and development) remain a major barrier to further development of projects within all areas of work. Issues such as staffing, venues and marketing appear universal challenges throughout all project categories. Some work on training appears to have developed and some further contact with retailers has been established .

The total number of projects still remain relatively small and can only ever be used by a tiny proportion of the population who may benefit from increased access to good quality food at reasonable prices, locally grown fruits and vegetables, community cafes, breakfast initiatives, lunch clubs and improved cookery skills. Many of the general food and health work carried out by health promotions or community development and others help to foster interest and focus on food, hopefully paving the way to make dietary change more acceptable.

Networking at a local or national level does seem to help initiate and develop activities. Many projects reported contacting the Scottish Community Diet Project or referred to information from Fare Choice.

It is likely that all of these projects help some of the most disadvantaged in our communities to attain food choices for the benefit of their physical health, although direct evidence is almost completely absent and evaluation of such work is long overdue. Health is more than just physical well -being and increasingly the discussion groups have provided information on the wider psychological, social and community benefits of these food projects. Many provide a route to gnawing at the environmental causes of ill-health such as poor shopping facilities, poor provision for young people to meet, poor educational opportunities, poor employment prospects and help to promote local action for local people.

The work of these projects alone will never deal with the reasons for poor dietary choices in Scots, but they provide local opportunities to address local issues and raise awareness of food issues. The expansion of all types of community food initiative work is to be welcomed providing continued networking, support and advice is available.

The implementation of The Scottish Diet Action Plan remains an on-going process, community food activities have been documented and the need to relate to other players in the food chain identified. Further development to improve the diet of Scots in low income communities will need networking between retailers, caterers , local authorities and others to assist the difficult process of dietary change.

Ultimately, community food initiatives and actions by other agencies in the food chain will have most effect when combined

“within a framework which recognises, and focuses on, the underlying social, economic and environmental circumstances which influence health”
Working together for a healthier Scotland- The Scottish Office- Department of Health, 1998

6. References

Anderson A.S et al (1996) Community Food Initiatives in Scotland. HEBS Edinburgh

Department of Health (1991) Dietary reference Values for Food energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom RHSS 42, HMSO London

Forsyth A, Macintyre S Anderson A.S. (1994) Diets for Disease? Intraurban variation in Reported Food Consumption in Glasgow. Appetite 22 259-274

Gregory J et al (1990) Gregory J, Foster K, Tyler H, Wiseman M (1990) The Dietary and Nutritional Survey of British adults. HMSO London

Gregory J. et al (1994) National diet and Nutrition Survey : Children aged 1-4 years. Volume 1: Report of the diet and nutrition survey. HMSO, London

HMSO (1992) Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Health in England. HMSO, London

Scottish Office (1993) Scotland’s Health: A challenge to us all. The Scottish Diet. Report of a working party to the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. London HMSO 54-76

Scottish Office (1996) The Scottish Diet Action Plan Scottish Office Department of Health, Edinburgh

Scottish Office (1997) The Scottish Health Survey. Scottish Office Department of Health HMSO Edinburgh

Scottish Office (1998) Working Together for a Healthier Scotland: Green paper Scottish Office Department of Health, Edinburgh

Valentine K (1998) Unpublished MA(Hons) Dissertation. School of Management and Consumer Studies, University of Dundee

Summary

1. Introduction

Achieving dietary change in the Scottish population presents a major health challenge and particularly so in low income communities where food choices reflect an interaction between economic circumstances, limited access to reasonably priced foods and cultural norms. To overcome some of these barriers a range of locally based food initiatives have emerged many of which are described within The Health Education Board for Scotland database on community food initiatives. However, since The Scottish Community Diet Project came into being in 1996 several new projects have appeared and it is timely to review current work in the area.

2. Aims

The aims of the current study are to update the existing community food database, explore pertinent issues and themes with those involved in running various categories of projects and to make recommendations for policy and practice.

3. Community based food initiatives

The focus of study was community based projects which primarily aim to address local issues of food access, food skills and food and health education.

4. Methods

The project used three approaches to collecting data:

i A survey to locate community food initiatives and update the relevant database

ii A series of Group Discussions (on Food co-ops, Mobile initiatives, Breakfast Bars, Cooking skills and Rural Food projects)

iii Telephone interviews (on growing initiatives) to identify relevant themes which act as barriers and opportunities to the maintenance and development of work within these main project categories.

5. Update of community food initiatives database - survey results

In overview, it is clear that community food initiatives are continuing to grow and flourish throughout Scotland. A total of 103 Community Food Initiatives were identified as currently operating in Scotland (compared to 77 in 1996). The aims of projects remain diverse but more than half reported health/nutrition education (particularly in a practical sense) as an aim of their project. Food co-ops (36), cooking skills projects (35) and community cafes (28) were the most common activities and 23 delivery services and 9 growing initiatives were also active.

Geographically, the most concentrated areas of action appear to be Strathclyde, followed by Lothian and Dumfries and Galloway. Most projects are sited in community centres, community flats, workplaces and schools. Others are based in village and church halls, mobile resources, community shops and allotments.

Whilst most initiatives get their food supplies from wholesalers, supermarkets were used by 34 projects. Most projects are targeted at the whole community, but there is a significant number that focus on children, family approaches, elderly and young adults (age16-25).

A wide range of training work were reported including food hygiene, business skills and marketing. The most usual providers of training were local authorities but Health boards and Local Enterprise Trusts had also contributed. Finance for maintenance and support remains a crucial issue in the development of all projects. Over half had received support from local authorities whilst health boards and trusts had also provide financial resources. Other funding included urban aid, charitable Trusts and Lottery monies. Only 3 listed European support.

6. Issues raised in group discussions - Common themes

It is apparent is that problems related to funding (initial, continuing and development) remain a major barrier to further development of projects within all categories of work. Issues such as staffing, venues and marketing appear universal challenges throughout all project categories. Some work on training appears to have developed and some contact with retailers (e.g. in mobile resources and cookery skills classes) looks useful for further developments.

7. Issues raised in group discussions : implications for practice and policy

Food Co-ops (including traditional co-operative approaches and bulk buying schemes) are widespread throughout Scotland and vary between voluntary activities and community based enterprises. Food co-ops face many challenges including start up costs, premises, food supply sources, volunteer turnover, training and ongoing maintenance and development. Many are linked with other health and community related organisations.

The main policy and practice issues include

• drawing together relevant information and guidelines to produce a “tool kit” for communities wishing to initiate a co-operative approach to food purchase
• identifying ways of generating good local shopping facilities that are not perceived as second rate but offer good service provision, local involvement and employment opportunities.
• identifying routes to working closer with the retailing sector
• a comprehensive review of local food provision should inform the development of local food policy and form the basis of one indicator of a healthy community.
• access to food and local shopping facilities should inform the planning process

Mobile initiatives are aimed at dealing with the increasing cost of weekly shopping and the inconvenience of obtaining it (especially in the elderly, housebound and rural dwellers).

The main policy and practice issues include

• opportunities to work with retailers
• clearer links with social services
• research into sustainability and economic viability of mobile shopping & delivery schemes.

Breakfast bars for children have developed fairly widely throughout the country in the last 3-4 years. Much of the current work is of a pilot nature and aims to assess process issues of provision development and usage.

The main policy and practice issues include

• drawing together relevant information and guidelines to produce a “tool kit” for communities wishing to initiate a breakfast bar
• evaluating the potential for schools to deliver breakfast provision.
• Such work may benefit from an integrated whole school-whole day approach to identifying an agreed agenda that meets the needs of individual communities.
• accessing centralised catering supplies through local councils would greatly facilitate food supplies and costs
• the nutritional value of foods and drinks provided should be an important consideration and inform menu design

Cooking skills initiatives have become extremely popular within the adult population but vary enormously in approach and style. Most are small scale with limited funding and face challenges in terms of finding premises and stimulating interest and uptake from target groups

The main policy and practice issues include

• drawing together relevant information and guidelines to produce a “tool kit” for communities wishing to start new classes
• Potential to link cookery skills with training initiatives for the benefits of domestic and employment opportunities
• identifying funding opportunities including retailers

Rural areas face particular problems of food access related to high prices for basic commodities, poor transport, poor job opportunities and limited consumer choices. In Dumfries and Galloway a recently established Food Initiatives Network provides an opportunity for information exchange and communication between community food projects and has identified specific links needed to progress work in this area include local authorities, local business links, local enterprise companies, other parts of the food chain (including retailers).

8. Issues raised in Telephone Interviews and implications for Policy and Practice

Growing initiatives originate from a diverse set of aims and objectives (including organic production, land use and work experience) and seem to have grown recently due to increasing concern about health concerns of food production. Projects range from small scale allotments to 20 acres but all enable locally grown vegetables to be accesses within local communities.

The main Policy and Practice issues include

• bringing workers from growing project together to address common themes and to help network growing and retailing/catering initiatives.
• providing a manual (tool kit) on basic information for starting growing projects in Scotland.
• links with local economic development organisations to improve access to and the availability of locally produced food

9. Conclusions

Community food Initiatives are continuing to grow and flourish in Scotland and it likely that the work of these projects help some of the most disadvantaged people in our communities attain healthier food choices although direct evidence of this is lacking. Health is more than just physical health and the benefits of these projects extend into psychological, social and community benefits, often addressing fundamental environmental issues of ill-health. In addition to increasing development of projects and networking of production and consumption links, the need to relate to other players in the food chain is vital if major changes in diet in low income communities is to be achieved.