local nexus network at birmingham business school 19th april 2016
TRANSCRIPT
In our report published last September, Food & the city economcy: Tensions, trade-offs and opportunities, we presented two new thinking tools:
The PMCC framework
The PMCC framework is the first of these tools (see above). It allows the user to place the organisations involved in the city’s food sector into four overlapping categories giving a ‘lens’ through which to better ‘see’ their scope and impact — and potential for investment.
The CHESS matrix
As the economics of PMCC organisations often conflict, we developed the CHESS matrix. It uses five factors: conviviality, health, economic prosperity, [food] safety & assurance and security of food supplies within
the city, around which the trade-offs can be more dispassionately debated. In the report, we used the CHESS matrix to explore two activities in the city:
Digbeth Dining Club
Coca-Cola ParkLives
We’ve suggested other useful thinking tools and ideas to help construct qualitatively different arguments on the food sector:
The SCALE of what it takes
Few grasp the scale of feeding a city. Here’s one way how: Take one person’s requirements and multiply this figure by the size of the population; e.g. individuals on average eat 2000kcal/day so this city imports 2.2bn kcal/day.
MUD: Middle-Up-Down
When making decisions about vast complex entities such as the food sector, it’s often helpful to think MIDDLE-UP-DOWN, as we have done with the food hygiene and VAT.
Metaphors we live by
‘Fighting’ obesity? Different metaphors generate different emotions; e.g. we could talk about our relationship with some food & drink products as dance, viruses to be inoculated against, or even as vermin.
BIRMINGHAMFOODCOUNCIL
Keynote talk by Kate Cooper onTuesday 19 April@Birmingham Business School
food, the city & its citizens: thinking tools
birminghamfoodcouncil.org @BhamFoodCouncil /birminghamfoodcouncil email: [email protected]
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About the Birmingham Food Council
EU briefing papers (two to date, more to follow)The food & drink sector: A briefing paper for the Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEPWhat works: Regulation or voluntary schemes in the food sectorFood insecurity in Birmingham: A city level response?Food & the city economy: Tensions, trade-offs & opportunities
Coca Cola and its effects on us and the cityAn update on food crime since the Elliott ReviewResponse to the Birmingham City Council Budget ConsultationFood & the city economy: An interim report & discussion paper
forthcoming: The safety of the city’s food supply & the role of the FHRS
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Our Board of Directors, advised by an international Panel of Experts, deliver activities to inform decision-making on food matters. These include:
Food safety & integrityIssues associated with tackling food crime were high on our agenda after the Elliott Review Birmingham. We based our Update on a briefing from Professor Elliott (who is on our Panel of Experts) and Nick Lowe to our Board.
With the Food Safety Group at the University of Birmingham and the city’s Environmental Health, we’re leading a project to raise standards of food safety and hygiene in the city’s food outlets.
Last November Catherine Brown, the Food Standard Agency’s CEO, addressed our 2015 Annual Meeting.
Birmingham City Council Chief Executive, Mark Rogers, chaired her talk and the Q&A afterwards.
We’re now working with Birmingham City Council and the FSA on what the city can do to meet the UK challenge of delivering food safety & integrity across the nation.
Food & the city economyWe’ve published three reports about the food sector, the first being facts & stats on the significance of the food sector to the city economy. The second was on the tensions, trade-offs & opportunities in the sector. Our latest was a strategy briefing paper for the Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP.
Food poverty, food insecurityThe drivers for food insecurity are worryingly real for many here.
Our paper on city-level responses to food insecurity, the result of a six-month project part-funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, was very well received, and taken up by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger and Food Poverty.We’re planning a project with NatCen to develop and pilot survey tools to help inform decisions to mitigate against hunger.
Global food securityWith the Warwick Food GRP and the NFU, we’ve begun a mapping project on local shire produce.
We meet with the CEO of Rothamsted this May to discuss Birmingham as a case study on a city’s role in relation to global food security.
And . . . The Hand That Feeds
Food production involves more land, water and people than other areas of human endeavour. Access to food determines health and influences national security and patterns of human movement.
Tim Benton, UK Champion for Global Food Security, Birmingham Food Council Panel of Experts member
Our publications likely to be of interest to the Local Nexus Network
At a Warwick Crop Centre lab
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