Cardinia Food Circles Project
About this project
The Cardinia Food Circles Collective Impact Project aims to establish a healthy, delicious, sustainable and fair food system for all Cardinia Shire residents.
The project has been running since November 2016.
Objectives
- Build a shared understanding of the Cardinia Shire food system, and its challenges and opportunities, amongst a diverse and representative group of stakeholders.
- Establish a shared and widely understood definition and basic understanding of food literacy with shire residents and council officers.
- Raise food literacy levels across the shire, particularly amongst young people.
- Bring food systems-thinking into the decision making process of Councillors and Council staff, and into key Council plans and strategies.
- Diversify food distribution and consumption in the shire, with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal and, where possible, local produce.
- Support business innovation and local job creation in the shire’s food system.
- Advocate to other levels of government for planning policy changes to better control the density and proximity of fast food outlets to vulnerable communities.
Key activities so far
- Background mapping report of the Cardinia Shire food system.
- Creation of a food system profile for Cardinia Shire.
- Extensive community and stakeholder engagement.
- Formation of the Cardinia Food Movement.
- Inaugural Cardinia Food Forum with 100 participants and an international keynote speaker.
- Kitchen table talks and Ideas harvest to generate the Community Food Strategy.
- Launch of the Community Grocer, an affordable pop-up fruit and veg market, in Pakenham.
- Distribution of food literacy survey to 2000 households in partnership with Monash University.
- Farming: The Next Gen film screening.
- Partnering with the Foodprint Melbourne research team to advocate for a resilient city foodbowl.