Newark and Sherwood

You can view Affordable Food Clubs and other food projects in Newark and Sherwood here.

The Feeding Newark and Sherwood group is made up of representatives from the following organisations, Newark and Sherwood District Council, The Lincolnshire Co-op, Salvation Army, Morrisons Newark, Nottinghamshire County Council Public Health Department, CAR (Community Action Response) Ollerton, Fareshare Nottinghamshire, Newark Foodbank (Trussell Trust), Volunteers running emergency food provision in Clipstone and Bilsthorpe, Rumbles Community Café, Social Action Hub and Nottingham County Council, a local Councillor from Ollerton and Feeding Britain. The group was set up to offer and provide a tier of provision to help families who are struggling with food poverty and food insecurity.

The aim of the group is to support and empower local communities, educating people to eat healthier and to provide sustainable and realistic access to a wider range of affordable food, working in partnership with agencies to provide a holistic and bespoke service dealing with the breaking down of barriers that lead to food insecurity.

Our current projects and key priorities

• Working with Nottinghamshire Childhood Obesity Trailblazer: to Improve the food environment of families with children in the early years living in areas of higher childhood obesity prevalence. Introducing Saturday Night Fake Away – 3 months project to provide ingredients and recipe cards to families in the local area, similar to Hello Fresh or Gusto encouraging families to cook and eat together.  This project will be evaluated and if successful will be made more widely available in the district.

• Crop Drop Initiative – working with local allotment growers – enabling families to access healthy, affordable produce.  Distributing fruit and vegetables via volunteer drivers to local charity projects, foods clubs and educational settings.

• Transforming emergency food provision into community led food clubs which will provide healthy food at low cost, supporting individuals and families who have been reliant on food banks.

• Widening local communities enthusiasm, knowledge and capability to grow and cook food.

• Supporting immediate needs of everyone, focusing on vulnerable groups such as isolated lonely elderly people, refugee families and gypsy and traveller communities.

• To develop, promote and support Social Supermarkets.

• Social Eating Space – once the Covid restrictions are removed this will be an ongoing project to develop, strengthen and bring communities together.

For further information please contact Jenny Palmer, Food Co-ordinator for Newark and Sherwood District Council (jenny.palmer@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk) or Helen Ellison, Health Improvement Officer (helen.ellison@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk).

• 4.14% of adults suffered from hunger
• 8.46% struggled to access food
• 9.54% worried about not having enough food

About this research:

The University of Sheffield have published statistics of UK adult food insecurity at Local Authority scale. You can view the map of measures of food insecurity here.

Hungry is defined as having skipped food for a whole day or more in the previous month or indicated they were hungry but not eaten because they could not afford or get access to food.

Struggle is defined as a positive response to at least one of the following:

• Sought help accessing food
• Skipped or shrank meal
• Gave a reason for not having enough food

Worry is defined as choosing very worried or fairly worried about getting food.