What did citizens find?

The Council saw the impressive work being done to grow the region’s food economy in the North East – and the huge potential for further growth and prosperity. With help from partnership organisations like Food and Drink North East, regional food producers and businesses are growing, creating jobs, getting good food to people who live in the region, and helping to regenerate high streets and rural areas. Citizens also saw the innovative work on the community side, with organisations using food to help get ex-offenders into employment, improve health outcomes through recipe boxes, and tackle the root causes of food insecurity.

But citizens found that infrastructure gaps are hampering growth. Businesses must send their produce to other parts of the UK for processing or packaging. The Council also saw that too many people still can’t afford healthy food, close to where they live. Economic disparity, rooted in the region’s industrial past, is still a major problem and barrier to growth.

The Council identified the conditions needed for the region's food to thrive:

• Building the infrastructure regions need: investing in processing, storage, and distribution creates the conditions for diverse food businesses to thrive
  

• Fair relationships between producers and buyers: stable and fairly-priced markets through direct sales or cooperatives allow producers to plan and invest
  

• Supporting partnerships over the long term: sustained support allows food partnerships to build relationships, share knowledge, and coordinate action in the region, linking producers with food banks, schools with farmers, communities with resources
  

• Connecting production with food security support: infrastructure and coordination is needed to help regional farmers supply food banks with fresh, local produce
  

• Giving regions the authority to address local realities: regional leaders understand their communities’ challenges but lack the authority and resources to act

What is the Citizen Advisory Council?

The Citizen Advisory Council is a group of diverse citizens from across the UK, who are working with government on the development of the new Food Strategy. They bring with them a lived experience of the UK food system and a focus on what works for them, their family, their community and future generations of people living in the UK. In this phase of work, they are investigating what national government can learn from what's already happening in different places to transform food.

Find out more here.

Who was involved?

The following Citizen Advisory Council members led the What Works Here Inquiry in the North East Combined Authority region:

Craig, Northumberland
Glory Omoaka, Glasgow
Penny Walters, Newcastle
Peter Gorringe, Northumberland

Local farmer and regional expert Tom Burston organised the inquiry and introduced the Council to a range of local actors:

Susan Justice and Steve Wheaton, Food and Drink North East
Walter Riddle, Hepple Estate and Hepple Spirits Company
Adam Riley, Riley's Fish Shack
Maria Antoniou, Northumberland County Council
Shion Gosrani, Newcastle City Council
Carlos Yescas, Food Newcastle
Fiona Sample and the Cafe 16 team, the Oswin Project
Mac Young, NFU Northumberland
Ross Lowrie, North East Combined Authority
Carol Rowland and Gemma Whaley, Newcastle Food Bank
Joanna Lacey, Nourish Food School
Duncan Nelless, Thistleyhaugh Farm and Graham Rutherford, View Law

Next steps

In addition to coming to the North East Combined Authority region, members of the Citizen Advisory Council have travelled to Cornwall, York and North Yorkshire and Liverpool & Merseyside. The next step is to present their findings to politicians and government officials through a series of reports, events and meetings – with representatives of the Council expected to meet with Defra Minister Angela Eagle later this year.