Good Food East Midlands

Good Food East Midlands (GFEM) is an independent organisation working across the East Midlands to promote healthy and sustainable food. Membership is open to any individual or group whether you want to Love it, Eat it, Grow it or Share it!

The GFEM Steering Group has membership from across the food community in the East Midlands, including those who grow and sell food, local authorities, schools, universities, health, housing, 3RD sector and others.

Organisations can be a member of GFEM without needing to be on the Steering Group – our aim being to bring together as many parts of the food community as we can through our Facebook page and events.

Current projects

GFEM supports a wide range of projects and programmes within the region in all of the ‘key issues’ of the SFC programme.

Promoting healthy and sustainable food to the public: this encompasses a range of schemes in the region which we are keen to support. In Nottinghamshire, for example, HOT (Healthier Options Takeaways) encourages changes to eating habits and Changepoint seeks to link diet, nutrition and physical activity.

Tackling food poverty, diet-related ill health and access to affordable healthy food: there is a number of community food growing programmes in the region which we are keen to roll out further. B-inspired in Leicester has developed a food growing programme for both good food and healthy exercise. Green Synergy has similar purposes, whilst developing the notion of therapeutic gardening.

In respect to food poverty, there are food banks in every city in the Region and a number of ‘rescue’ cafes, such as Mint Lane in Lincoln and the Real Junk Food Café in Leicester.

Building community food knowledge, skills, resources and projects: we support a number of food education programmes in the region. In Lincolnshire, the Washingborough Academy teaches much of its curriculum through food
and in Derbyshire, HENRY (Health, Exercise and Nutrition for the Really Young) focuses on healthy food for the 0 – 5 age range.

Promoting a vibrant and diverse sustainable food economy: a number of community programmes in the region have begun to develop distinctive ‘kitemark’ products to develop regional identity. Stamford Community Orchard Group, for example, is concerned to conserve and consume old apple varieties of East Anglia.

Transforming catering and food procurement: Mint Lane Café in Lincoln and Leicester City’s Real Junk Food Café both use surplus supermarket food, as well as food from food growing projects, to provide nourishing and healthy food through a range of exchange mechanisms. They have a strong volunteer base and support volunteers to develop skills and knowledge in food preparation and catering.

Reducing waste and the ecological footprint of the food system: Swadlingcote in Derbyshire became England’s first ‘waste less, save more’ town – chosen by Sainsbury’s in 2015 as the first place to explore ways of reducing food waste at the community level.