The Food Foundation Podcast

This week, Kate Anstey, Head of Education Policy at Child Poverty Action Group on the latest analysis published this week with The Food Foundation The report urges local leaders to do everything they can to ensure more children get a free lunch but say the onus is squarely on the UK government to expand provision of free school meals and end classroom hunger.Click here for more information, here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here to sign up to our newsletter.

Leticija Petrovic, the local food policy lead at the Food Foundation revisits a subject we covered a few months ago in our series of Pod Bites, how place-based, community-led food initiatives can help people access affordable, healthy and sustainable food.She looks more deeply into just three of the 10 models in this collaborative study by the University of Leeds and the Food Foundation, using the Priority Places for Food Index developed by the Consumer Data Research Centre in collaboration with the consumer group, Which? The aim: to gather data about the risk of food insecurity across seven areas in the UK and identify neighbourhoods which are most vulnerable to the rises in the cost of living.With Professor Michelle Morris of the University of Leeds, Juli Thompson of Food Savers, Bradford, Megan Weimann of The Warehouse in Newtonards and Reeni Kennedy-Boyle of Fyne Futures Ltd in Argyle and Bute.Click here for more information on Scaling Out, here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here to sign up to our newsletter.

Bee Wilson, author of ground-breaking books First Bite, The Way We Eat Now and most recently, The Secret of Cooking on TastEd, the food charity which shows how teaching kids to taste in school can lead to them learning to eat more healthily.Click here for the Food Foundation Manifesto, and here for the Food Foundation Newsletter.

Paul McDonald,Chief Campaigns Officer of Health Equals on this summer's Make Health Equal campaign.Where you're born in the UK can cut your life short by up to 16 years because of factors from income to housing, air quality, access to healthy food and community connections. The Make Health Equal campaign demonstrated that change is possible for the next generation, and Paul explains how it worked.Click here for more information, here for the Food Foundation and here for the Food Foundation Newsletter.

Rebecca Tobi, senior business and investor engagement manager at the Food Foundation on a new piece of research exploring plant based alternatives to meat. In a report called Rethinking Plant-based Meat Alternatives, the Food Foundation creates a taxonomy of the best plant-based options for meeting health, environmental and affordability objectives.Click here for the report, here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here for the Newsletter.

Fayeth Jones, one of the original Food Foundation Young Food Ambassadors on this year's Residential or 'Resi' in York.The Young Food Ambassadors are a diverse group of more than 40 activists from around the UK, many of whom have lived experience of food insecurity. As part of the Food Ambassador volunteer programme, they go to events, meet up with policy makers and do media interviews to campaign for better access to healthy food for every child in the UK.Fayeth takes us to York with Jacob, Habiba and Hasan where to discuss what went on at this year's event.Click here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here for the Newsletter.

Michelle Patel, Deputy Director of Analysis at the Food Standards AgencyThe Food Standard Agency is the Government department that regulates for food safety and looks out for consumers in the food system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Michelle explains what it knows about people's concerns about food prices and food affordability, both for those in household food insecurity and for people who are not.Click here for the Food Foundation Manifesto, and here for the Newsletter.

Dan Parker, CEO of Veg Power on how to encourage more kids to eat school meals.As part of Veg Power's annual survey of 3000 parents of primary school aged children and their children, Dan's team asked what's going on at home that's driving decisions about the take up of school meals. And they found that at any given lunch time, 25 to 30% of the children who are entitled to a free school meal, choose not to have it. Dan tells us why and what needs to happen to ensure that every child is getting access to healthy food at school.Click here for more information about the Veg Power survey, here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here to sign up for the Newsletter.

This week, Myles Bremner, Chief Executive of Bremner and Co talks about the Food Standard Agency's recent report on a pilot scheme to monitor school food standards compliance. Click here for more information, here for the Food Foundation manifesto and here for the FF Newsletter.