Food Vale held its inaugural Engagement Event on 9th of November 2017 at the St Donat’s Art Centre, Llantwit Major.
A new partnership aiming to celebrate a holistic approach to food, Food Vale promotes engagement and collaboration with local growers, health, food producers, food retailers, hospitality and catering services from across the Vale of Glamorgan.
The event was attended by over 50 organisations including the Soil Association, Farmers Union of Wales, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Age Cymru, the Amelia Trust Farm, Cardiff and Vale College, Riverside Real Food and local businesses Valerie Chicken, Glamorgan Smallholders and Cobbles Kitchen and Deli.
Rhianon Urquhart, Principal Health Promotion Specialist for the Cardiff and Vale Local Public Health Team said: “We are delighted at the number of organisations who are committed and motivated to collaborate and share the vision of healthy, local sustainable food. Our aims include becoming a Sustainable Food region, developing a Food Charter for the Vale and establish a wider network of stakeholders and Steering Group members. Key to this is consulting with communities and we look forward to using the outputs from today as the building blocks to achieve these goals”.
Nicola Sumner-Smith, Senior Rural Regeneration Officer at the Creative Rural Communities initiative at the Vale of Glamorgan Council said: “This engagement event is a great and rare opportunity to see people coming together from lots of different sectors, from health, to farming, to tourism, to work towards a common goal which is to create a vision and a joined up approach for food in the Vale of Glamorgan.”
“It’s great to see so many people here today, it’s really encouraging to see representatives from health, farming and tourism all working towards a common goal”
The outcome of the event has been to formulate a vision and framework for taking the Food Vale partnership forward. A plan is now in place to work towards achieving the Sustainable Food region Bronze Award and to take the initiative forward. Those interested in becoming involved are encouraged to contact Rhianon Urquhart at [email protected]
