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Community food initiatives in Scotland: activities and issues

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.