This month Food Cardiff is asking FOR Cardiff members businesses to help Cardiff become one of the UK’s most sustainable food places by 2024.
Last year, Cardiff was awarded Silver Sustainable Food Places status – becoming the first place in Wales (and one of only six places in the UK) to achieve the prestigious accolade; the scheme is based on bronze, silver and gold achievements across six key sustainable food issues.
Food Cardiff has created a new toolkit, with the help of funding from For Cardiff’s City Ambition Fund, which shows how city centre businesses of all sizes and from all sectors can get involved and help Cardiff achieve Gold Sustainable Food Places status by the year 2024.
Using the toolkit, businesses can to pledge actions that contribute towards a thriving local food economy – defined as one in which everyone has access to food that is both healthy, and environmentally sustainable.
Pledges which hospitality businesses are specifically encouraged to take include:
- Include two portions of fruit and veg in every meal
- Ditch single use packaging and #choosetoreuse
- Assess and reduce your food waste
Meanwhile, businesses from any sector can pledge to do some or all of the following:
- Buy from – and invest in – organisations working towards a sustainable future
- Source from local enterprises and not-for-profits
- Provide healthy food and drink options for staff and visitors
- Become a certified Living Wage employer
- Source locally, and shorten supply chains
- Support the local community by offering expertise or space
- Read the Good Food Cardiff Strategy and become an ambassador for change
- Share your Good Food actions with your network
- Join a Food Cardiff meeting
The FOR Cardiff & Food Cardiff Business Toolkit is available to download in English and Welsh. As well as business actions, there are many ideas for pledges which individuals can make and Food Cardiff is encouraging businesses to share a link to these with their staff.
Food Cardiff is also sharing case studies on its website and social channels to highlight how some businesses are already paving the way; the first looks at how local entrepreneur and hospitality business owner Kasim Ali of Waterloo Tea has embedded sustainability into his businesses. You can watch and read that here.
Further case studies will highlight the ways that non-food businesses – including corporate organisations – can play their part in creating a more sustainable food city.
Adrian Field from For Cardiff said,
“Our City Ambition Fund was set up to help realise the ambitions of our 2021-26 business plan, including helping Cardiff businesses transition to the green economy, and positioning the city centre as an open and accessible leisure destination of choice. We were delighted to get behind Food Cardiff, to help them to reach their goal of making Cardiff one of the most sustainable food cities in the UK, which absolutely ties into those ambitions.”
Food Cardiff’s Sustainable Food Places Coordinator Pearl Costello added,
“Food Cardiff believes that the food we eat has a huge impact on life in Cardiff – not just on people’s health, but on communities and businesses, food producers, and the environment too. We are so excited to see some of Cardiff’s most recognisable city centre businesses getting behind this campaign – and pledging to take action that will improve the local food system for everyone.
Download the FOR Cardiff & Food Cardiff Business Toolkit (English, Welsh) and make a pledge to take action at foodcardiff.com.