Mapping Local Food Webs Project
What is a local food web?
A food web consists of the links between farmers and growers, processors, suppliers,
local food shops, as well as other local food providers such as farmers markets, box
schemes, community supported agriculture and food cooperatives, through to
consumers.
What is the aim of the Mapping Local Food Webs Project?
This project aims to give people the materials and support they need to ‘map’ –
research and record - their local food networks or webs across England. The
findings should increase understanding of the links between producers and
consumers, and the benefits those links bring to people in urban and rural areas.
By raising awareness of the importance of these webs, the project should strengthen
support for local food production and for better availability.
Who will we be working with?
CPRE, together with Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, will support
local volunteers to research existing local food networks across England in urban and
rural locations.
How will the project help people?
 By developing understanding of where and how food is produced and sold
 By bringing people together to explore problems related to the availability of
local food
When will it happen?
From November 2008, Regional Coordinators will begin recruiting volunteers to test
out our mapping tools in six locations across England. From March 2009 we will be
working to map local food webs in a further 24 locations (3 per region) across 8
regions of England (not including London.)
Benefits to being involved
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You could:
Learn new skills
Develop your understanding of where and how food is produced and sold
Come together with others to explore the issues, consider the problems and
develop solutions
Identify possibilities for new community-based solutions to improve your local
food supply
Collect information to help you to shape the policies and decisions which
affect the availability of local food in your area and beyond
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What can a map of local food web be used for?
By mapping and documenting a food web we can increase people’s knowledge of
where food comes from and how it is produced, distributed and sold. This should
build awareness amongst local people of the importance of their local food network.
Thriving local food webs have many advantages for people, places and the
countryside:
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New jobs and small businesses created
More money spent and kept in the local economy
Foods produced and sold locally, generating fewer food miles and less waste
A viable living for farmers and growers managing the countryside
Better access to fresh, healthy, affordable food
Greater choice of where to shop and what to buy
The information gathered from mapping local food webs will be used to promote the
benefits of sustainable local food production, local shopping, and fresh, affordable,
high quality food. This will encourage policies that secure local food networks.
Local food campaigning at CPRE
In 1998, Caroline Cranbrook, a CPRE member and active volunteer, grew concerned
about the impact of a proposed superstore on her local market town of Saxmundham
in east Suffolk. By mapping her local food web, Caroline was able to prove just how
important a healthy local food network was to the town. She showed how the lives of
people and the success of rural businesses could be damaged by a new
supermarket development. The planning application for the new store was turned
down. Caroline Cranbrook’s research has shown that since then the food web has
thrived together with local businesses and jobs.
Caroline’s research resulted in the launch of CPRE’s local food campaign. CPRE
has published several reports including: Food Webs, Sustainable Local Foods,
Mapping Local Food Webs and The Real Choice: how local foods can survive
the supermarket onslaught.
The mapping local food webs project will develop this research on a national scale. It
will provide better evidence of the threats to local food networks, of the opportunities
they offer and will inform local, regional and national policy and decision making.
Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming
Sustain’s experience of working in disadvantaged urban areas will complement
CPRE’s rural networks. Sustain’s Food Access Network (formerly the Food Poverty
Project) produced their 2000 report Reaching the parts…Community mapping:
working together to tackle social exclusion and food poverty which was followed, in
2002, by Hunger from the Inside: The experience of food poverty in the UK, which
extended the participatory appraisal methods tested in the first report - in deprived
areas of three English cities - to another four urban areas. These reports form part of
a longstanding commitment to ensure that everyone – not just those in more
prosperous areas – has access to healthy food. More recently, Sustain has been
working, with others, to create local food and farming systems that encourage people
to eat healthy diets, and produce food in ways that that enhance the environment and
local employment.
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The work of CPRE and Sustain on food mapping is complementary. Sustain has
developed a participatory workshop-based approach in mainly urban areas
supported by their Food Access Network. CPRE’s food web survey work has
focused on rural areas through market towns and their hinterland. The research
phase of this project will integrate the best of these approaches to develop tools
applicable to both rural and urban food networks.
How does the Mapping Local Food Webs project help the Making Local Food
Work programme?
Other Making Local Food Work projects will work to increase the supply of local food.
By increasing interest, understanding and ultimately demand for local food, this
project should encourage people to support their local food network and secure the
long term viability of local businesses and the management of the countryside.
What will this project do?
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Create an action pack for volunteers to explore their local food web (currently
being researched and designed by Coventry and Warwick University)
Run workshops across England with a diverse range of people to debate local
food issues
Support volunteers to produce case study reports of food webs from each
region
Produce national reports drawing together findings from the regions to
understand the benefits that local food networks bring to both urban and rural
areas
Promote our findings to local, regional and national media and raise
awareness of the benefits of local food
Present our research to policy makers at national seminars to encourage
policies that support local food webs
www.makinglocalfoodwork.org.uk : About the programme / Food webs and
mapping
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