Lincolnshire Food Summit returns for 2024 to tackle the big issues
The Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership, including the Lincolnshire Co-op and Acts Trust, is excited to open bookings for 2024’s Lincolnshire Food Summit.
Taking place at the Market Rasen New Life Centre, the free-to-attend Lincolnshire Food Summit returns following last year’s highly acclaimed and fully booked event to once again tackle some of the biggest issues facing the food system.
The Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership team is excited to be bringing together an incredible agenda full of highly inspirational, thought-provoking and genuinely game-changing speakers for the Food Summit including Simon Hawking from Lincoln’s Acts Trust, Steve Meadwell from the Centre for Social Justice, Andy Cleaver from Trussell, Dr Jason O’Rouke, Headteacher at Washingborough Academy and the Founder of TastEd, and Matti Colley of the Lincoln Anxiety Resilience Association.
At last November’s Lincolnshire Food Summit, a foodbank volunteer shared deeply personal stories about the people seeking food support, highlighting that their struggles go far beyond hunger. This powerful moment resonated with so many in the audience, emphasising that volunteers often become more like counsellors, hearing stories of hardship, grief, and courage that are rarely heard but need to be voiced for real change.
This year, the Food Summit will focus on communicating these untold stories to those with the power to instigate systemic change, with key speakers being joined by Dr Carolina Camacho from the University of Lincoln, who will be working with attendees to map Lincolnshire’s food support landscape and explore where organisations source their food, harnessing this knowledge to develop local solutions.
Food education was identified by last year’s participants as an important issue, and the summit will be digging deeper into this theme. Guests will be hearing from some exceptional food educators who are showing what is possible: an inspiring partnership between a primary school and an urban market garden; a school that has become internationally famous for embedding good food right across the curriculum, the school kitchen garden and into the dining hall; and the County’s food team, that helps schools to improve food provision against the odds, and is willing to talk about the considerable challenges they face.
Taking this education a step further this year, chefs from GoGro will be speaking from their experience of teaching cooking skills to adults: how to make delicious, nourishing food - and doing so on the tiniest of household budgets.
Laura Stratford, Coordinator at the Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership and event lead, said: “Last year’s attendees left feeling inspired, hopeful, and connected, and we realised we needed more of this! There’s no kidding ourselves about how hard things are for many people in our communities - and for the volunteers and staff busting a gut to help. We’ve invited panel guests who can help us to go beyond sticking plasters, and change the status quo. That’s what the Summit seeks to do.”
When: Thursday, November 21st, 2024, from 9:30am until 4:30pm
Where: Market Rasen New Life Centre, Serpentine St, Market Rasen, LN8 3AR
Tickets: Free of charge
Bookings: Essential, book at https://lincolnshirefoodpartnership.org/food-summit-2024/
With special thanks to the Lincolnshire Community Foundation and the Evan Cornish Grassroots Fund for their funding, enabling events such as the Food Summit to take place.