An innovative new project is set to explore the benefits of local food to the local community, economy and the countryside around Penrith. The project, part of a national initiative led by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) [1], will support the local community to map their local food network, or ‘food web' [2] in and around Penrith.

Local food - Your help needed

A public meeting will be held at 7 pm on Tuesday 7 July at the Quaker Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, Penrith, CA11 7TR (map) to launch the project in the town and to recruit volunteers to join an active team in leading the research locally. Anyone interested in finding out more about the project is welcome.

For more information contact Helen Meade, CPRE's North West Regional Co-ordinator for the Mapping Local Food Webs [3] project, tel: 07833 250134 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Helen Meade, CPRE's North West Regional Co-ordinator for the project, said:
‘A food web is about much more than how food gets from A to B; it's about the many benefits that the local food network brings to an area. Cumbria has a amazing tradition of distinctive, locally produced food reared in beautiful landscapes, and a lot of really exciting initiatives exist to support it.

‘This project provides a great opportunity for the people of Penrith and the surrounding area to meet to explore local food issues with shopkeepers and farmers. It has the potential to build links between farmers, growers, local people and food outlets, and to discover new opportunities to strengthen the local food network in and around Penrith. Getting the community involved and making the most of people's local knowledge are central to the project. We hope that people from all walks of life will take part.'

The project is already receiving strong local backing. Peter Dicken, of Penrith Action for Community Transition (PACT), said:
‘This sort of project is at the heart of the Transition Town movement and the Food Group attached to PACT is proud to be a part of it. It is really exciting that Penrith is part of a national project with far reaching yet intensely local implications.'

The project is supported nationally and locally by Big Lottery funding as part of the Making Local Food Work programme, which aims to reconnect people with the land through food and community enterprise. [4]

At the meeting it is hoped more volunteers will be recruited to form a local research team. Volunteers will be needed for many different roles including steering the project, interviewing local shoppers, retailers and producers of local food, organising events and running a workshop for local residents.

‘The meeting will be a great chance to find out more about local food and the project, join the team of volunteers and to see how the findings could support and develop the local food web in and around Penrith,' Helen Meade concluded.

Ends

Notes for editors

1. CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England. We advocate positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, we have 60,000 supporters and a branch in every county. President: Bill Bryson. Patron: Her Majesty The Queen. www.cpre.org.uk

2. A local food web consists of the network of links between people who produce, process, supply, sell and buy food in an area. These relationships of interdependence between people, businesses and places in the web benefit livelihoods, the quality of life and the quality and character of the towns and countryside.

3. The Mapping Local Food Webs project is a national initiative to engage the skills and knowledge of local people to research the spread of local food networks from consumer to producer and their impact on the local community, economy and the countryside. In total the project will cover twenty two towns and cities across England. It aims to achieve better understanding of the challenges facing local food networks, to build links within communities between residents, shopkeepers, food producers and policy makers, and to create opportunities to influence local, regional and national policy and planning decisions. The project forms part of the Making Local Food Work programme, funded by the Big Lottery from 2007-2012. The project is led by CPRE, with the support of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. www.sustainweb.org

4. Making Local Food Work is a 5-year, Big Lottery-funded programme aiming to reconnect people with the land through food and community enterprise. A consortium of seven organisations, led by the Plunkett Foundation, is pooling its expertise to develop and promote different types of community food enterprise, giving advice to people all over England looking to re-engage and help others access good, fresh, local produce with clear origins. Our vision is to secure the long term future of thriving communities that are strongly connected with land, that understand where their food comes from and are empowered to respond to their own needs using community-led solutions. For more information, please go to www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk