Going hungry in the UK: our ‘food desert’ problem

This public webinar on Wednesday, 6 March, 2024, attended by an audience of 70, focused on what food deserts are, why they exist and what the solutions might be. 

Please click here to read a report on the event.

Please click here to watch the video.

Chair:

Dr Jagjit Singh Srai, Director of Research, and Head, Centre for International Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.

Dr Srai's research centre at the University of Cambridge brings an engineering and strategic operations management perspective to the design, analysis and operation of international supply chains and the impact of advanced production and digital technologies. Through major collaborations with industry (individual firms and consortia), primarily in healthcare and food/FMCG sectors, his research findings have directly underpinned major organisational change.

Panellists:

Professor Carol Wagstaff, Research Dean for Agriculture, Food and Health, University of Reading.

Professor Wagstaff's research focuses on improving the quality of horticultural food crops, including the nutritional value, appearance, flavour and shelf life, as well as helping consumers make healthy dietary choices.

Carol is the Principal Investigator of FoodSEqual one of four £6m projects awarded under the Transforming the UK Food System Strategic Priority Fund, which focuses on “co-production of healthy, sustainable food systems for disadvantaged communities.” She is Co-Director of the BBSRC-funded Horticulture Quality and Food Loss Network and the Director of the AgriFood Training Partnership, which delivers high-level skills and training for people working in the agriculture and food industries.

Dr Megan Blake, Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield.

Dr Blake is a recognised expert in food security and food justice. She has an established international reputation for her research focusing on three intersecting strands: 1) Surplus food chains and practices of redistribution 2) Community organisations, social innovation and self-organisation, and practices of resilience 3) Social inequalities. Her work is underpinned by a practice-based theoretical approach. She works closely with local and national scale organisations and local authorities to achieve research impacts that make real change. 

Leon Ballin, Programme Manager, Sustainable Food Places

The Sustainable Food Places network is made up of 95 pioneering food partnerships in towns, cities, boroughs, districts and counties; all driving innovation across the food system with the aim of making healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where people live. Leon lives in Sheffield and has been committed to improving our food system through empowering communities and supporting policy change for over 17 years.