Brief project summary

 To provide opportunities for people subject to an Unpaid Work Requirement of a Court Order ('Community Payback') to grow food in community gardens for donation to food  banks, food cooperatives and community pantry schemes.

• to provide opportunities for people on Community Payback to produce commercial food and plant-related products to raise funds for food banks, food cooperatives and community pantry schemes to enable them to buy wholesale supplies of non-surplus food to supplement the dwindling supplies of surplus and donated food available to them.
• to provide structured pathways into paid employment in the wider food sector for people successfully completing their Community Payback in the above projects.

 Initially we planned to set up a model of good practice for this with Stockport Homes 'Your Local Pantry' scheme in Stockport and then replicate the model across the country once we could prove it works.

https://www.yourlocalpantry.co.uk 

 The current situation

Nornir staff have been inundated by the demand for the project. We initially greatly underestimated the potential demand and enthusiasm for the idea from food aid projects right across the country, not just in Stockport and not just for people on Community Payback, but also for serving prisoners, ex-prisoners resident in Probation Approved Premises (hostels) and criminal justice-involved people more generally.

Consequently we very quickly widened the scope of the work for the project and now have the following exciting ventures ready to go in Hull, Burnley and Wrexham as well as Stockport, with others at an early stage of development in Nottingham, Exeter, Salford, Manchester, Rochdale and Oldham.

Arising out of our evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ending the Need for Food Banks we have also consulted with the following national food aid infrastructure bodies and volunteer food growing networks, all of whom are keen for us to run pilots of our model with their members

• Trussell Trust https://www.trusselltrust.org
• Your Local Pantry https://www.yourlocalpantry.co.uk
• Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) https://www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk
• Family Action https://www.family-action.org.uk/what-we-do/children-families/food-club/
• Incredible Edible https://www.incredibleedible.org.uk

 We have also been contacted by the 'Greener on the Outside for Prisons.' (GOOP) Project, a Horticultural Therapy programme run by the University of Central Lancashire in prisons across North West and South West England. They are keen to work with us to adapt our model for use in prisons, starting with supplying food and raising funds for the Stockport Homes Pantries.

Stockport

Agreement in principle has been secured for GOOP prison projects to supply Stockport Homes Pantries with free, fresh seasonal fruit, veg and salads and raise funds for the Pantries through commercial production of garden plants and organic fertilizer to be developed by our project. This will all tie in with Stockport Homes new Ex-Prisoner Accommodation Project and offer additional volunteer opportunities for prisoners on day release and post release working in the Pantries as a pathway into jobs in food retail.

Number of prisoners involved in producing the food = 18+ at any one time

Number of beneficiaries in Pantries =  750 p.a. (5 Pantries with average membership of 150 each)

First deliveries of food expected to be Autumn 2022

First commercial Plant sales expected to be Spring 2023

Commercial organic fertilizer production expected to be fully operational by Summer 2023.

Burnley

Agreement has been reached with Padiham Unitarian Church to make a large area of their  land available for Community Payback Teams to supply the main Burnley Food Bank run by Burnley FC in the Community with free, fresh, seasonal fruit, veg and salads and raise funds for the Food Bank through the commercial production of garden plants and organic fertilizer to be developed by our project.

The Food Bank is currently transitioning into a Burnley-wide Pantry/Food Cooperative with the active support of the local authority. The Leader of Burnley Council is keen to see our project supply and raise funds for this initiative in line with our evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ending the Need for Food Banks.

All stakeholders concerned see our project's involvement in this as tying into the support services already operated by both the Church and Burnley FC, thus also providing pathways into paid employment for people successfully completing their Community Payback with the project..https://burnleyfccommunity.org

Number of Community Payback Workers involved in producing the food = 18+ at any one time

Number of  Food Bank/Pantry/Co-op beneficiaries = 1000+ p.a.

Land to be cleared ready for planting starting Autumn 2022

First deliveries of food expected to be Spring 2023

First Commercial Plant Sales expected to be Spring 2023

Commercial organic fertilizer production expected to be fully operational by Summer 2023

Hull

Agreement has been reached with a consortium of church-based Food Banks/Pantries/Co-ops and Hull Council to make up to 5 acres of council land available for Community Payback Teams to supply them with free, fresh, seasonal fruit, veg and salads and raise funds for them through the commercial production of garden plants and organic fertilizer to be developed by our project.

We are currently working with the consortium to formalise it as an independent legal entity and together with them we have co-produced evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ending the Need for Food Banks which explains in greater detail how our model works and how its roll-out nationally will make a significant contribution to ending food poverty in the UK.

Number of Community Payback Workers involved in producing the food = 18+ at any one time.

Number of Food Bank/Pantry/Co-op beneficiaries = 1000+ p.a.

Land to be cleared ready for planting starting Autumn 2022

First deliveries of food expected to be Spring 2023

First Commercial Plant Sales expected to be Spring 2023

Commercial organic fertilizer production expected to be fully operational by Summer 2023

Wrexham

Residents at Probation Approved Premises in Wrexham and Bangor have been informally growing food for donation to local Food Banks since 2018 as members  of the Incredible Edible movement https://www.incredibleedible.org.uk

With the endorsement of Incredible Edible and the support of Cwmpas https://cwmpas.coop  we have worked with this group to help them  formalise themselves into a new social enterprise which will continue to supply Food Banks with free, fresh seasonal fruit, veg and salads and which will also develop an organic fertilizer production facility to provide paid employment for Approved Premises residents when they move on to independent living – pathways to employment and food security through growing food and organic fertilizer production. See https://www.eginoemerging.org

Number of Approved Premises residents involved in producing the food = 5+ at any one time

Number of Food Bank beneficiaries = 500 + p.a.

Deliveries of food ongoing

Commercial organic fertilizer production fully operational by Spring 2023