Author: Sarah Avery

Feeding Britain Annual Reception 18th June 2025

Joanna Scott, Programme Director for Feeding Gloucestershire represented the county at Feeding Britain’s Summer Parliamentary Reception on Wednesday 18th June at the House of Lords.

The event was opened by Baroness Rosie Boycott and Chair of Feeding Britain who welcomed regional partners and invited them to share their work growing a network of affordable food initiatives and helping individuals and families rely less on ‘crisis’ support provided by Food Banks and become more food resilient.

Andrew Forsey, National Director, Feeding Britain illustrated data from their latest Affordable Food Clubs Impact Report (April 2025) which supports 426 Affordable Food Clubs across 133 regional and local partnerships, representing a growth of nearly 700% since 2021. This rapid expansion reflects both the rising need for food support and the growing recognition of Affordable Food Clubs as a sustained and dignified model of provision.

Network reflections and updates were provided by Karen Mullan, Director, Foyle Network Foundation (pictured with Andrew Forsey), Nina Parmar, Food Aid Manager, Sufra NW London and Penny Walters, Pantry Coordinator, Newcastle.

“Food for Thought” at Cheltenham Science Festival

Feeding Gloucestershire is proud to be a sponsor of Project Grow’s interactive installation ‘Food For Thought’ created for Cheltenham Science Festival which is running this week from 3-8 June 2025.

The site has four interwoven themes – Food Production, Climate Change, Ecology & Species Preservation, and Activism – inviting visitors to reflect on the past and reimagine the future of food and inspire people to eat and grow local food.

The festival includes interactive activities for people of all ages attracting 68,000 people including over 8,000 school children.

Feeding Gloucestershire becomes a CIO

Feeding Gloucestershire are extremely pleased to announce that we are now registered with the Charities Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. This is exciting for us as we continue work towards our vision for Gloucestershire to be a county where everyone can enjoy good food and nobody goes hungry.

We would like to thank those who have given their time and support to get us to this point, and to Gloucestershire County Council for funding our work to date.

Thanks go to our former steering group members – Sue Weaver and Julie Craig (Gloucestershire County Council), Jenny Phelps (FWAG SW) Phil Coysh (formerly The Trussell Trust), Amanda Strover (Stroud District Foodbank), Nick Penny (Forest Voluntary Action Forum – FVAF), Leanne Purnell (Gloucester City Council) and Lisa Jevins (Barneys Pantry). Additional thanks go to Andrew Forsey and Rose Bray from Feeding Britain and to Bishop Rachel Treweek.

We would also like to thank the many incredible organisations who have been part of the journey so far, and we look forward to continuing to work with them.

We would like to introduce our trustees – Sarah Avery, Helen Hutchings, Emma Keating Clarke, Corrie Sissons and Steve Townsend – you can find out more about them here

Nourishing Gloucester

Building a sustainable food network was one of the priority areas identified at Feeding Gloucestershire’s launch in Gloucester and reflects the recommendations made in Nourishing Gloucester: A Food Strategy for All

Through the Nourishing Gloucester Forum, which is being facilitated by Feeding Gloucestershire and Gloucester City Council,  we will explore how we can bring together strategic and policy priorities with practical community delivery, knowledge and experience – to identify key development areas and create an action plan that is reflective of the needs of Gloucester City and the organisations that support the city.

At our first Forum meeting in November 2023 we explored two questions

  • What we need for a Sustainable Food Network by 2030?
  • How can we create the Network and who should be around the table?

At our second forum we discussed prioritising the work and working groups have begun to form, the areas prioritised are

  • Accessing Fresh Local Food
  • Distribution and Surplus
  • Nutrition and Learning
  • Community Growing

Wrap around support and Mapping are areas of work that are already in progress. Health and Wellbeing is a strand of work that runs through all of the priorities and funding is an area we will review with  organisations involved as this work progresses.

One thing that was requested at the forum was a directory of organisations across Gloucester who are or wish to be involved with this work. So we have created a google form to collect Directory information and will host a Gloucester specific directory. Please fill in this form to sign up to the directory and to tell us if you would like to be involved in any of the working groups.

To contact the Nourishing Gloucester support team (Leanne and Deb) please email nourishinggloucester@gmail.com or updates can be found here or on social media–Facebook, Instagram and Twitter