Good food shouldn’t depend on your postcode

Where you live should not determine whether you can afford, access or enjoy good food.

Yet for too many families, access to healthy, affordable food continues to be shaped by income and circumstance. And those inequalities have consequences not simply for what people eat today, but for children's health and life chances.

That is why this week’s announcement by government of Good Food Neighbourhoods is important. It’s a total of £10 million of funding, divided across 45 local authorities which are identified as having the greatest levels of deprivation and childhood obesity. The funding is to support the development of solutions by these authorities to meet their community's needs. It is also important because it is part of something bigger.

Across food policy, we're seeing growing recognition that diagnosis and ambition are not enough. Whether through the campaign for a Good Food Bill, changes to school food standards or initiatives tackling food insecurity, the challenge is increasingly about turning evidence, understanding and ambition into practical change for communities.

It is an important outcome from the government’s Good Food Cycle, it’s a significant mention in the 10 Year Health Plan for England and is a key topic for the Food Strategy Advisory Board work. We also cover inequality in opportunities and health outcomes in our IGD Food System Change Leader Forum and Nutrition Leader Forum. How can industry, civil society and government co-ordinate collective resources around a smaller number of actions capable of delivering a healthier, more affordable, more resilient and more sustainable food system?

On 21 October, we'll bring leaders from across the food system together at the IGD Future of the UK Food System conference to discuss how we turn exactly this sort of ambition, into delivery. Check out the event programme below.

From food insecurity to thriving food communities

The challenge behind Good Food Neighbourhoods is bigger than just food availability.

It is about whether people can reliably access food that is affordable and supports their health, and whether the places in which they live make that easier or harder.

This is not a new challenge. Some of the most important developments in food policy this year have put affordability and access much closer to the centre of the debate.

The Food Foundation, together with more than 100 supermarkets, food businesses, investors, NGOs and academics, has called for a Good Food Bill. The argument is that England needs a long-term statutory framework capable of making affordable, nutritious and sustainably produced food the most accessible choice, while also strengthening resilience and giving businesses greater certainty.

That matters because food insecurity can't be considered in isolation from health, resilience or economic security. They are interconnected outcomes of the same food system.

Good Food Neighbourhoods provides an opportunity to put the right support in at a local level, to make the right decisions for each community.

Local flexibility needs to be matched by an ability to identify what works and scale it.

And this is where the food industry and wider civil society have an important role.

We don't need to start from scratch

There are already strong examples of businesses, charities and communities combining their resources and expertise in different ways.

Felix and Alliance Food Sourcing (IGD) are demonstrating the opportunity to bring organisations across the food industry together to source waste in order to tackle food insecurity at much greater scale.

But redistribution is only one part of the picture. The long-term goal must surely be to create the conditions in which healthier, affordable food becomes easier for everyone to access in the first place regardless of the postcode they reside in.

And that starts young.

School Food programme show how Civil society, philanthropic support and policy can work together for a great outcome.

This is a brilliant example of the journey from evidence and advocacy to policy and implementation.

The Government has now published updated school food standards, the first update in more than a decade. Subject to Parliamentary approval, the new standards are due to take effect from September 2027, aligning school food more closely with current dietary recommendations.

The development comes alongside years of campaigning, research and practical work across the sector.

The Food Foundation formally responded to the Government's consultation on updating the standards, drawing on evidence around children's diets and making detailed recommendations on areas including breakfasts and the nutritional quality of food offered in schools.

And five organisations, Chefs in Schools, The Food Foundation, Jamie Oliver Group, School Food Matters and Bite Back, have come together through the School Food Project, backed by £2.3million of funding. Its purpose is to help schools translate the new policy ambition into better food, stronger food education and practical change.

That distinction is important.

Policy can establish direction. Delivery determines whether children's experiences actually change.

From September 2026, the School Food Project is providing support for schools, while the updated standards themselves are expected to take effect from September 2027.

And there is a useful lesson here for Good Food Neighbourhoods.

The best outcomes are unlikely to come from government, business, charities or communities acting independently. They come when national ambition is combined with local understanding, specialist expertise, practical support and mechanisms for scaling what works.

From individual initiatives to a system

This is ultimately why Good Food Neighbourhoods could matter beyond the initial investment.

The opportunity is to connect national capability with local need.

Imagine the combined effect of local authorities understanding where access is weakest; community organisations understanding residents' needs; food businesses contributing products, logistics, expertise and investment; schools helping establish healthy habits early in life; and charities contributing established delivery networks.

The strongest approaches could then be evaluated, adapted and scaled.

That direction closely reflects the opportunity for more co-ordinated strategy to support delivery. Within its Vibrant food cultures in the Good Food Cycle, the proposal is to coordinate existing and new activity in Good Food Neighbourhood areas, while allowing local plans to reflect local circumstances. This could see Government, local partners, charities and industry working together to identify areas, map initiatives that can be scaled and evaluate outcomes.

Moving from ambition to delivery

There is no shortage of ambition for the UK food system.

The Good Food Bill campaign is making the case for long-term structures and accountability.

The new school food standards demonstrate how national policy can set a clearer expectation for children's food, while the School Food Project is helping translate policy into practice.

Felix and Alliance Food Sourcing demonstrate what's possible when the capabilities of charities and the food industry are combined. And Good Food Neighbourhoods creates another opportunity to bring national and local action together.

What happens next?

On 21 October 2026, leaders from across the food system will come together at the IGD Future of the UK Food System conference.

The conversation needs to move beyond identifying the challenges facing our food system towards the practical question of delivery.

How do we connect policy, industry capability, community knowledge and investment to make good food accessible to everybody, wherever they live?

Good Food Neighbourhoods gives us an opportunity to start answering that question in real communities.

The challenge now is to turn individual action into systemic change.

Join us at the IGD Future of the UK Food System on 21 October and hear views from inspirational leaders on what’s needed next.