Food Power Together: Greater Eston, Redcar and East Cleveland — is the food partnership for Redcar and Cleveland. It brings local groups, businesses and public bodies together around food. If you work on food here, you can become a partner.
Together we work on all the things that shape food here. That means growing it, cooking it, selling it and giving it away. It also means teaching about food and paying for it. Most of all, it means helping people get good food.
So do you work on any part of that? If so, we would like you to become a partner.
Who can become a partner
Partners come from right across the borough. They work in many different ways:
- Growers, allotments and community gardens
- Food businesses, farms and producers
- Foodbanks, social supermarkets, community groceries, pantries and eco shops
- Churches, other faith groups and community centres
- Schools, Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council, the NHS and public health
- Charities and community groups working on money, health, holiday hunger or wellbeing
No group is too small. You do not have to run a foodbank to join. Food touches almost everything, and so does the partnership.
What partners do together
We look at the whole food system, not just one part of it. Foodbanks matter. But we are about far more than emergency food. We also work on growing food, saving spare food, low-cost food, cooking, learning and holiday hunger.
Partners meet often, in person and online. At these meetings we:
- share what is happening on the ground and spot the gaps
- join up food help, low-cost food and growing across the borough
- work on why people need help, not just count food parcels
- speak with one voice to funders, the council and food networks
Three ideas guide all our work. First, we look at the whole system. Next, we work as partners across sectors. Above all, we treat people with dignity.
What being a partner gives you
- a place in our Our Partners directory. If you run food support, you also go on the borough Food Map, so people can find you
- links to other groups doing the same kind of work near you
- a shared voice in the Tees Valley Food Partnership and the North East Sustainable Food Alliance
- help and shared learning from fellow partners
There is no fee to join. The partnership is small and mostly run by volunteers. So the more partners put in, the more everyone gets back.
Get in touch
Becoming a partner starts with a chat. Email foodpower@rcvda.org.uk or call 01642 440 571. You can also use our contact form. Then we will tell you when the next meeting is and how to take part.