The Creating a Healthy Food City forum and Birmingham City Council Public Health are currently in the process of developing a food system strategy and action plan for Birmingham for the next 8 years.

The vision of this strategy is to create a bold, healthy, fair, and sustainable food system, and a prosperous local food economy, where food choices are nutritious, affordable and desirable so all citizens thrive and can achieve their potential for a happy, healthy life. They are beginning to work on a collaborative action plan to achieve the strategy’s vision through eight different workstreams – this will be a partnership with actions being owned and achieved across people and organisations in Birmingham.

The first stage of this action plan is undertaking workshops with stakeholders across the food system, an exciting first step in beginning to make changes across our food system as it will bring up key actions to be undertaken. If you feel you can make change with regard to the food system in Birmingham, these workshops are a great way to get involved. Please email [email protected] if you want to be added to a workshop. Don’t worry if you can’t attend – there will be other opportunities to contribute to the strategy and action plan.

The workshops are detailed below:

Food Skills & Knowledge (our ambition is to empower citizens and businesses with knowledge and skills in relation to the food system, including food sourcing, preparation and nutrition) -Tuesday 11^th January 11:00-13:00

Food Sourcing (our ambition is to increase sourcing of environmentally sustainable, ethical and nutritious foods across the food system and to support the local economy) - Friday 14^th January 11:00-13:00

Food Transformation (our ambition is to transform diets and reformulate recipes to contain less fat, salt and sugar, and more sustainable, less processed and a more diverse range of ingredients) - Wednesday 19^th January 11:00-13:00

Food Waste & Recycling (our ambition is to maximise the repurposing of food, distribution of food surplus and recycling, and minimise waste and unsustainable packaging)  - Friday 21^st January 13:00-15:00

Food Economy & Employment (our ambition is to create a thriving local food economy and maximise opportunities so the food system is a major employer and citizens benefit from high quality training opportunities) - Wednesday 26^th January 14:00-16:00

Food Production (our ambition is to empower citizens to grow, produce and preserve their own food, and enable food grown and produced locally to connect into the city’s food system) - Friday 28^th January 11:00-13:00

Food Behaviour Change (our ambition is to identify drivers of behaviours, including barriers and facilitators, and shape actions and solutions to bring about immediate and long term change) - Monday 31^st January 13:00-15:00

Food Innovation, Partnerships and Research (our ambition is to gather insights and facilitate collaboration, innovation and research across the food system by working with, and learning from, partners) - Friday 4^th February 11:00-13:00