New Report Shows Growth Potential For UK Food Co-ops And Buying Groups
A new report from the Soil Association highlights the growth
potential of food co-ops and buying groups to support access to affordable,
ethical and sustainable produce. The report produced at the end of the Making
Local Food Work, Big Lottery funded programme revealed over 400 enterprises
were supported by the initiative with many opportunities for development across
the UK.
This confirms consumers are keen to embrace new community
food initiatives ensuring food is local, sustainable and affordable. Buying
groups involve people who regularly get together to buy local and organic food.
Groups vary greatly in size and by pooling buying power and ordering food in
bulk, direct from farmers or suppliers, they buy good quality food at a more
affordable price.
Speaking about the report, Traci Lewis, Project Manager at
the Soil Association said; "Food co-ops and buying groups help support
access to quality affordable food, they're especially relevant where there are
'food deserts' or people don't have any other options outside of the
supermarket but want to access affordable local and organic produce. What's
inspiring about the report is it shows the commitment people are willing to
make to ensure the success of initiatives like this. It requires people to work
together with friends, colleagues or neighbours to shop differently, when
supermarkets often are the easy option.
With the New Year ahead of us, many people will find now is
a great time to try to change their shopping and eating habits. Food co-ops and
buying groups are flexible and innovative and a range of different models can
be easily adopted by farmers, institutions and consumers."
The report also highlights some of the most interesting
recent developments in the sector including new large scale buying groups and
co-ops such as People's Supermarket, a sustainable food cooperative in London
and Real Food Exeter a community owned food store with over 300 members.
Successes in Europe also feature including Biocoop in
France, a national organic distribution co-op with over 320 independently run
Biocoop member shops and Gruppo di Acquisto Solidale network, Italy (GAS) a
large scale buying group with over 700 member groups each with numbers varying
between 10-300 families.
The full report can be found here: Buying groups - A viable
supermarket alternative?
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