Granite City Good Food wins prestigious Silver Sustainable Food Places award

By Louise Glen

June 16 2022, 11:05 am

Martin Carle from Granite City Good Food and Fiona Rae from Cfine. Supplied by Granite City Good Food.

Aberdeen has been recognised as a leader in sustainable food.

This week the city has been presented with a Silver Sustainable Food Places award – for its work to promote healthy, sustainable and local food.

Winning the award, partnership organisation Granite City Good Food was recognised for being a key voice in creating change to ensure food can be good for people, planet, and the economy.

The partnership also tackles some of today’s greatest social challenges, from food poverty and diet-related ill-health to using food as part of responses to the climate emergency.

A great achievement

Lesley Dunbar, Granite City Good Food chairwoman, said: “It’s a great achievement for the city where much of our focus remains on the mitigations for the climate crisis and cost of living crisis.

“I would like to thank all partners who worked towards achieving our Silver Award including all internal partners at Aberdeen City Council and Community Food Initiatives North East (Cfine).

“I’d like to also thank Martin Carle, our local Granite City Good Food coordinator who has worked tirelessly to bring all this together.

She continued: “We look forward now to becoming the first city in Scotland to achieve gold in 2025.”

Hosted by Cfine, the organisation has supported a range of activities around creating a sustainable food system including emergency food support and community food pantries.

CFine was also the charity partner at the recent Taste of Grampian event, the region’s largest food festival.

Granite City Good Food's have been presented with a silver award from Sustainable Food Places. — Granite City Good Food’s have been presented with a silver award from Sustainable Food Places.

Martin Carle, sustainable food coordinator at Cfine, said: “Granite City Good Food demonstrates that transforming food systems towards sustainability is possible, and the partners of Granite City Good Food have been committed voices in acting at a strategic level around this agenda, as have the wider organisations and businesses who engaged with the application process.”

Key to the success of the city in creating a sustainable food system, Granite City Good Food’s role as a member of the Sustainable Food Places partnership has allowed the partnership to learn from other areas across the UK and, likewise, to establish itself as a local leader in sustainable food issues.

Leon Ballin, sustainable food places programme manager, said: “Granite City Good Food has shown just what can be achieved when creative and committed people work together to make healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where they live.”

In the coming months, Granite City Good Food will be expanding upon its plans to continue creating systems and welcomes any food businesses or organisations who have not yet joined the journey to get in touch.