Local Food Challenge

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What was the Local Food Challenge?

We worked with the Mayor of London to design and deliver the Mayor’s Resilience Fund which included two phases:

Open call for local authorities, government agencies and charities in London to partner with us as problem-holders (2020)
Designed and delivered 10 city-based challenges (2021)

The Mayor’s Resilience Fund was funded by the London Economic Action Partnership. The Local Food Challenge was delivered in partnership with Groundwork London and Barnet Together.

What was this challenge about?

Create a digital service that effectively manages the flow of food in Barnet, maximizes referrals (need) and supply (excess food/donations), and creates predictable patterns for and with local actors to more efficiently provide food to people who need it.

Where was it focused?

Focused on the London Borough of Barnet initially, however the system should be designed to be replicable across other boroughs in future.

Who were the end users?

All local food actors: community food projects and banks, local shops, restaurant and venue owners with excess food, and the donating public.

This challenge was delivered in partnership with

What impact were we seeking?

A more responsive flow of donations to existing food projects
More active engagement in local food need and community food projects
A better connected local food system
Open data to support understanding of the local food system

In the long term, the aim is to create a sustainable local food system that reduces food waste and meets the need of all people in food poverty or insecurity in Barnet – and able to support other local food systems to achieve the same aim.

The finalists

Time to Spare

A software platform that allows local food providers to work together as a network to share information on the needs of their users, their stock levels and what services they are running. This helps each member to understand their own impact better and that of the network as a whole.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TIME TO SPARE

Local Food Network by Pala

A system of applications that open up a living, breathing picture of a local community’s food projects to each of its actors, and empowers them with the tools to fulfil their roles more impactfully. The app will be underpinned by an adaptive, constantly learning demand monitoring and prediction model.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PALA

Spaze Food Management Platform by Spaze

The Spaze Food Management Platform (SFMP) is a cloud-based resource management platform that enables a systemic coordination of all local food stakeholders to effectively manage the supply and demand of food to tackle food insecurity.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SPAZE