Sustainable Communities, Social Enterprise and the Mainstreaming of Local Food:
A Case Study of Stroudco
Lead Researchers:Dr Julie Newton, Dr Alex Franklin and
Dr Adrian Morley
Socially desirable outcomes such as community cohesion, diversity and social mixing are key features of the sustainable communities discourse. Yet, this aspect of the sustainable communities policy agenda remains under-researched in the UK, particularly in relation to people’s everyday experiences in their local communities.
BRASS has been awarded funding for a six month part time fellowship under the Manchester University lead ESRC/DEFRA Behaviour Change Grant to explore these issues in the context of sustainable food consumption practices.
The research explores a pioneering new community food hub (Stroudco) located in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. Its founding principles include: providing affordable, locally-produced food to people in the more socially deprived communities of Stroud; building supportive and understanding links between producers and consumers; and, developing a more sustainable local food culture and resilient community.
As its focus, the research explicitly looks at how Stroudco is engaging the wider community of Stroud who do not necessarily have an interest in sustainability. The consumer membership of Stroudco is purposively being generated from a relatively deprived neighbourhood, the majority of whom have not previously had any active involvement in local sustainability initiatives.
Here, we use this case study to explore some of the challenges and opportunities faced by local sustainability initiatives which attempt to bridge diverse communities, in this instance through a direct attempt at broadening out sustainable food consumption practices.
Using a combination of ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews, the study will focus on the extent to which the food hub has been able to change the day-to-day food consumption practices, habits and knowledges of its membership.
Careful attention will be given here to how the structural organisation of the food hub as a democratically owned and run social enterprise, and the emphasis which is placed on member participation and community building, are contributing to the achievement of sustainable behaviour change.
For further information on Stroudco Food Hub, click here
