#10 Sheffield Food Network

Sheffield Live - 93.2 FM

2008-11-03T17:36:00.004Z

Today Sheffield Food Networks’ very own Martin Lydon discussed the vision of the network when interviewed by Grow Sheffield’s ‘local reggae’ food forager Stephen Watts on Sheffield Live 93.2 FM. Promotion of the food network and key findings so far were at the forefront of the discussion intermingled with ethics, environment and growing your own food…

To hear more/see the interview film and enjoy some of the music offered see the links below:

Sheffield Live Interview

Encounter's at the Encounters' Shop

2008-11-03T15:57:00.005Z

The 30^th October saw the takeover of the encounter’s shop by Sheffield Food Network, a range of activities on offer to passers by and regulars in exchange for an apple or a ‘chocolate apple wedge’. The event was successful in terms of engaging some of the resident’s of Sharrow. Participants wrote a story or a memory of food that was important to them and others drew on a plate their favourite food mapping the origin of the ingredients on the food map provided.

A wide range of meals were depicted on plates and used to decorate the shop. Additional contributions to the map were added by a number of people who entered the shop. Whilst participating in these activities engaging people on the their thoughts on food, in particular shopping locally, where they shopped and why. This gave a good foundation and created an interesting discourse throughout the day.

A wide variety of individuals, as well as some groups, some had heard of abundance (recently featured on river cottage on channel 4) and others simply came in with their children to participated in the planned activities. One group used the shop as their final destination on an adventure trail they were doing with their parents.

Eating Seasonally

2008-10-31T12:41:00.004Z

Whilst working on a seasonal vegetable wheel, I stumbled across some Seasonal cooking ideas from The River Cottage, and a rather nice Seasonal Food Chart from Allegra McEvedy's book Leon: Ingredients and Recipes.

Icon set v.2.0

2008-10-30T13:00:00.005Z

Improved icon set. Slight colour changes, rollover now a fade out instead of grey - and two new categories added; Manufacturing (i.e Breweries) and Knowledge Share.

Icon set v.1.0

2008-10-29T23:19:00.003Z

Will be making some minor changes tomorrow, but they do look good on the beta map...

Chew On This!

2008-10-29T20:55:00.001Z

http://www.chewonthis.org/

This could be a very very good idea for the Sheffield Food Network...

Changing Families, Changing Food

2008-10-29T11:30:00.004Z

Hi everyone,

This is a link to Peter Jackson's research: the investigation 'takes food as the lens through which to observe recent changes in family life and examines how changes in family form have affected patterns of food consumption. The Programme's findings are expected to contribute to current debates about obesity and nutrition, media and consumption, food choice and deprivation'.

The objectives of the investigation are outlined and the findings are expected to be posted shortly.

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/familiesandfood/

Sarah

Soggy food

2008-10-28T23:31:00.002Z

After much investigating diets, ethics, and environmental consequences, and much cutting out food pictures, here is the beginning of some hopefully informative and interesting drawings. This one illustrates the water consumption of producing a variety of food stuffs. If you look closely, the good stuff uses the most water: coffee, chocolate, olives, cheese, meat, wine...

Some people base their dietary choices on information such as this, as in this case, valuable fresh water resources are being rapidly used up to support our western tastes for high intakes of meat and dairy. Ho hum. (For some more info, see here: The Massive Scale of UK Water Consumption)

Oh yes, the image:

More coming!

Roz

Calculating your carbon "food" print

2008-10-25T21:45:00.004+01:00

I thought this was really fun. The site gives you frying pan and photos of various meal options for breakfast, lunch, dinner and any time. You click and drag your choice into the pan, and its carbon food points appear in the right hand column calculating you daily carbon total the way you would calories. A high carbon diet is apparently 4500 points which if eaten every day would release the equivalent of 3 tons of CO2 a year. To make a positive difference, the site advises keeping to 2500 points or lower a day.

http://www.eatlowcarbon.org/

Measure your carbon footprint

2008-10-22T08:25:00.004+01:00

Simple carbon quiz to measure your carbon footprint

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/carbon.html

Project Flyer

2008-10-21T17:07:00.001+01:00

Sheffield Food Network Logo

2008-10-20T15:59:00.003+01:00

Here it is, after raging debate between the entire group and numerous attempts, the basic logo. Colour variations and silhouette backgrounds to follow.

Free Range Review

2008-10-18T17:41:00.004+01:00

This site uses another Google mapping systems to pinpoint registered locations. The map uses a rating system for the whole of the Uk using 'Reggie Markers' there are three of them:

Shows your location, based on the postcode you type.
Shows companies that have been rated and their Reggie Rating.
Shows companies that have not yet been rated.

When you click on a marker more of the company details are shown and the option to visit that companies page and profile on.

Once your postcode is typed in they website only shows food shops with 30 miles radius since. Have a look http://www.freerangereview.com/.

logos

2008-10-17T17:47:00.006+01:00

For some reason I can't upload any images... so for more logo loveliness go here

[___But Martin can because he's cleverer than Adam ;-)___]

Fruit Sticker?

2008-10-17T17:14:00.001+01:00

In the ongoing logo debate, here's my twopence...

(Alternating produce in the centre)

Roz

What if: Grow your own

2008-10-17T09:48:00.004+01:00

Picture above: example of the grow bag installation in Hoxton Square, London.

What if: project part of the London festival of architecture encouraged the use of 'vacant, neglected and undefined spaces in the inner city' for growing vegetables and fruit.

For more info see : http://www.what-if.info/VACANT_LOT.html

and for other projects done in the London festival of architecture:

http://www.what-if.info/index.html

Article from the Times: Can city dweller's be self-sufficient?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4225138.ece

Green map with filters / logos

2008-10-16T22:35:00.003+01:00

This looks promising - a green google map with custom logos and a filter menu (rhs) to turn on and off layers of information. Possible to click on logos in filter menu to get a pop-up explanation (Thanks to James Brown)

Ethical Hijack : Sustain calls for change

2008-10-15T15:14:00.004+01:00

I found an article that I'm in process of reading by Sustain who are lobbying the Food Standards Agency to adopt recognised standards for terms such as “local” and “seasonal” food and the term “farmers’ market”. The reason's being to make sure that the descriptions are not used inappropriately, but also to allow enforcement authorities to prevent mis-use, so that meaning and the quality that these terms provide are not lost.

For more information down load the report:

http://www.sustainweb.org/pdf/Ethical_Hijack.pdf

Some choice reading from Leon Ballin

2008-10-15T11:51:00.001+01:00

FOOD DISTRIBUTION: AN ETHICAL AGENDA

A report out from the Food Ethics Council examines the impact of food distribution networks on our environment, economy, culture and communities, and their contribution to climate change.

The way our food is distributed cements in place production, consumption and trading practices that destroy the environment, harm animals and are deeply unjust. 'Food distribution: and ethical agenda' offers a sustainable vision for the future of food distribution, and provide a roadmap for government, business and civil society to help get us there.

The report calls for far reaching changes to government policy spanning climate change, transport, planning and school food. It argues that businesses will be under growing public pressure to prove they can be trusted choice editors, taking the responsibility for consuming ethically off their customers shoulders.

Find out more:

- Download the report (http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/399)

- Press release: government must get back to basics on food economy (http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/400)

- Press release: putting food on the nation's plate (http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/398)

Event Ideas - 'A Moveable Feast'

2008-10-14T21:53:00.006+01:00

An event held at The Laguna Playhouse in California which held an event called the 'moveable feast' structuring it around acts - a course in a different place like a food trail but 'feast-like'. I thought this could be an interesting idea if combined with encouraging local restaurants to offer one locally produced a dish. Could provoke some good discussions about food and about people's perception of the term local.

http://www.lagunaplayhouse.com/support/events/a-moveable-feast.php

More mapping, from Anne Marie

2008-10-13T20:48:00.005+01:00

"HI J

Just some more thoughts re maps from Simon Yuill who I organised to come down and do a workshop as part of our exhibition on Earth Mouth Hand Earth at access space see:

http://www.access-space.org/ccs

He mentioned this map to me in one email:

http://dev.deargreenplace.org/greenmap/

Simon is doing a map to come out of the Access Space workshop which I will forward on to you (Should have it next week). We explored the city centre with Stephen and him and about 8 others looking for food growing now and future opps and he is making a map out of this.

Simon Yuill's map for Manchester based on sites of social significance but interesting to see how he did it:

http://www.freesocialfoundations.org

Im sure he'd be happy to speak to you if it was helpful - he works on open source software.

AM x"

Google Calendar

2008-10-13T20:16:00.004+01:00

Hey I've invited you everyone to the google calendar sorry about the message that comes as default from google. I've started putting some dates in but I'm sure there's more to add. Hope the dissertations have/are all going well. Here's the link : http://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1#

Enjoy

Harvesting in Lincolnshire

2008-10-12T22:20:00.003+01:00

Hey,

I went to Lincolnshire today to help harvest an orchid. Was a pretty good day, again i will try and put my photos on Archstud tomorrow. I met some interesting people, one of the guys helps organise the abundance harvesting in Sheffield (around Broomhill, Crookes and Walkley i think)and has my contact deatils and is going to let me know if they are doing anything. I wondered if it might be useful if we all try and help them out a bit on a couple of Sheffield harvesting trips... what do you think?

The Encounters Shop

2008-10-12T22:08:00.008+01:00

Hello all,

The Encounters shop is officially open. Martin and myself went to the opening on Saturday and our map was getting a fair amount of encouraging interest and the other stuff in there all looks really good. I think once we have a graphic or logo decided we may want to update the info-panel, just something to think about... I'll try and put all my photos on Archstud tomorrow. Anyway the map is in operation so we can start gathering some info and get people involved!

More blogging!

2008-10-11T22:12:00.001+01:00

Guys and girls,

The Spires live project has overtaken us for number of posts and hits. Hurry up and finish those dissertations!!

Food Lover's Britain 'Food finds'

2008-10-10T11:51:00.004+01:00

Hey when I was researching food event's I came across this website which offers a map that people can nominate businesses, initiatives etc. It has a very specific criteria for the information shown on the map. For further information see http://www.foodloversbritain.com

Sheffield Food Network

2008-10-09T12:38:00.001+01:00

Here's my entry for the logo. Please add your own.

- Jay

Message from Grow Sheffield

2008-10-09T12:12:00.005+01:00

From Leon Ballin

"I enjoyed the meeting yesterday and with that coupled with looking at the blog it's clear your getting stuck in with the ethical issues around food in a creative way.

I suppose what I was trying to get across is that the project is about sustainability (of all kinds) and what may or may not be included in the Network should reflect this standpoint. The standpoint being, what you as a group, believes sustainability should be about. It's not that important to me what the view of the project is, just that it should have one - collectively. I know ideas around telling people what to do and top down imposition of ideas are contentious but in reality we all do it in some way. It comes from advertising, government, peer pressure and social norms. Whatever ethos the network has it will come from your own beliefs, prejudices and social conditioning etc whether you like it or not. I'm not against making that ethos explicit and discussing it. A good example might be the 'Rough Guides' travel books. Hotels, restaurants etc get in there for a reason. That reason is based on the writers criteria. Travelers trust (or not) those guides because those criteria have been applied.

If no set criteria - what's to stop everything being in the Network? My example of the Turkish restaurant wasn't very good - but then I thought if it acted as an unofficial Turkish community centre meeting place (as Zahid's grocers for Pakistanis on London Rd) it has an element of social sustainability.

I really like what your doing and these discussions your having with each other and myself are exactly what Grow Sheffield would be doing at this stage - though you have less time. The idea of different levels of 'approval' is interesting. When the project is back with GS, and hopefully with funding, we will be sending out people to meet restaurant/shop owners and validate any claims they may have. Your ideas will work well while resources are limited and builds in sustainability if resources weren't forthcoming in the future.

The groups ideas are definitely making me think about the project in different ways and in the end GS would rather you explored ideas freely and not feel restricted by, well, what I've written above. It's just my addition to the discussion. The wider consultation will be the best way to test ideas out I think.

see you all soon

Leon"

and

From Anne-Marie, Leon's predecessor

"HI J

Looks great! -
Would be nice to link up with www.fallenfruit.org in the USA at some point artists/foragers with similar interests/mapping etc and nice t-shirts!!!:-) "

Encounter Abundance

2008-10-08T21:03:00.005+01:00

"You are invited to share this season's Abundance bounty at the Encounters Shop"

Featuring fruit absolutley free!

16 Wostenholm Rd, Sharrow

S7 1LJ

From 11th October - 15th November.

Open Saturdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

See flyer for more details!

On the subject of Food Miles...

2008-10-08T11:45:00.002+01:00

‘Food Miles’ versus the ‘Place-based Food System’
From the desk of Jac Smit:

“Transporting food and agriculture inputs by plane, train, truck and ship is a driving force towards global warming and climate change. Air shipping consumes ten to twenty times as many petroleum calories as the food calories it puts on the retailers shelf. Moving food by truck [the most common] utilizes five to ten times as much as shipping by train and train miles consume two to four times as much energy per mile as sea transport [consider refridgerated].

Overall, as a generalization, global agri-business consumes over ten calories of petroleum and coal energy to deliver a calorie of food to your dinner plate. This is the global warming cost of so-called “food miles”. These food miles impact some climate zones more intensely than others.

As with de-forestation, the post WW II lower density of more rapid urbanization is considerably expanding food miles and its negative impact on the environment in which we live.

A viable and fairly common definition of urban agriculture is that which is within “same day delivery”. Same day delivery can put a calorie of food on the retail shelf for between one and four calories of transportation calories.

A simplification of the ‘Place-based’ food system ‘Farm to Market’ can be stated as:

1. Harvest [or slaughter]
2. Chill [or process]
3. Load truck [or train]
4. Deliver

All four within 24 hours. This process is a four to five times reduction, from the global agri-business industry, in terms of global warming and climate change.”

A study conducted in the UK published in Food Policy estimates that if all of the UK’s food were to be sourced within 12 miles of homes or other places of consumption, the avoided environmental/associated costs would amount to £2.1 Billion

Source:
Pretty J., Ball A., Lang T., Morison J., 2005: Farm Costs and Food miles: An Assessment of the Full Cost of the UK
Weekly Food Basket. Food Policy, Volume 30, Issue 1, February 2005, Pages 1-19

Green Myth #3

2008-10-08T11:38:00.003+01:00

"Choosing organic fruits, vegetables, dairy and meats is smart. While there's no definitive evidence that organic foods have any significant nutritional benefits over conventional foods, they must be produced without antibiotics, growth hormones, and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. This lowers your exposure to potentially toxic substances. And because organics are grown and produced using sustainable, regenerative farming methods, they're good for the soil and good for the planet.

Except when they aren't.

Organic foods are only good for the planet when they're not trucked, shipped or flown around the world before landing at their final destination. Food miles are the distance your food has traveled from farm to store. The idea is the higher number of food miles traveled, the greater amount of energy consumed and pollution released -- both of which contribute to the problem of global warming. On average, most of our meals have traveled about 1,300 miles (2,092 km) before they arrive on our table [source: ATTRA]. Think about it: How did fresh strawberries get to your local store in the middle of winter? In 2005, the total amount of fruits and vegetables that were flown into California alone released more than 70,000 tons of CO2 , the same amount of pollution produced by 12,000 cars on the road [source: National Resources Defense Council]."

From http://www.howstuffworks.com/5-green-myths3.htm

Encounters Shop Proposal Update

2008-10-06T20:40:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone,

I've amended the sketch of the possible proposal for our contribution to the Encounters shop...hopefully the concept is a bit clearer now. Obviously it's not final - I just wanted to get the idea on here as a visual to get the ball rolling!

Sarah

UK Food Map...literally

2008-10-06T15:24:00.003+01:00

A map created by Hand Made Maps Ltd, which was established in 1991 and is a development from the work of David Atkinson. Food Map of the UK was published in The Independent Newspaper. To look at other work produced see : http://www.handmademaps.com/

Geotagging

2008-10-06T14:41:00.004+01:00

Information on geo-tagging. Flickr have mapping features which allow users to 'geotag' their photos, automatically placing them on a map. The interface of the map is very simple and easy to use. http://www.flickr.com/map/ article on geo-tagging http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2006/10/geotagging_with_zonet/

The Continuous Picnic

2008-10-06T13:56:00.006+01:00

The continuous London picnic - to engage Londener's in a 'dialogue about urban food production'. An area of London was turned into a continuous picnic for a day. An 'inverted market' was one event held as well as 'community composting' and lots of fresh food was provided. See link for more info : http://continuouspicnic.blogspot.com/

October Harvest Feste

2008-10-05T18:09:00.006+01:00

Hello,
Myself and Rachel went to an event today for the October Harvest Feste. It was hosted by Grow Sheffield in combination with the Rivelin Valley Allotments Co-operative at the Rivelin Park Cafe. There were a few stalls with information about Grow Sheffield (particularly Abundance), games for children, displays and local fruit and food.

We met a nice lady called Vanessa who is a member of Grow Sheffield and she was interested in how we were getting on with the food map. She informed us she had some ideas of her own about how to divide the city into areas in a less conventional manner based on the French 'quartier' system. Vanessa suggested she would email us some information about it incase we were interested.

We also met an interesting lady called Natalie Hunt who works for Sheffield First. Natalie explained them as being a group that puts community groups in touch with other groups. She knew about the previous food map that was made of Sheffield and apparently had some contact with a couple of the people involved in it. She also gave us her contact details and suggested she would be happy to help publicise our new Sheffield food map. I'm not sure on the details of this but she welcomed further contact with herself.

Myself and Rachel can discuss this and our other observations of the event more tomorrow in the meeting. Hope the dissertations are coming on well!

Dynamic online map interface

2008-10-04T11:09:00.002+01:00

Stumbled across this network map of the GSAPP Columbia. The user explores and can drag the nodes to reveal more of the network (click the circles and drag around the screen). An interesting alternative to the static google-tag-map and potentially more revealing of network/food chain. No doubt involves some bloody complicated code though...

Meeting Minutes 03/10/08

2008-10-03T23:15:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

These are the minutes from today's meeting between myself, Martin, Rachael and Ben to discuss what we might do to promote ourselves in the Encounters shop...there will be sketches to support these on Monday.

Happy reading!

Sarah

Meeting Minutes 03/10/08

Present: Sarah Green, Martin Lydon, Ben Johnson, Rachael Jones

Topic for discussion: Proposal for the wall space in the Encounters Shop

- Martin and Sarah began the meeting by discussing a number of ideas relating to what could be done with the wall space in the Encounters shop. It was suggested that our proposal should be a map of Sheffield that locates people, places and commodities relating to locally sourced produce. One key idea was that visitors to the shop could interact with the map with the use of luggage tags that could be pinned to it to identify places of interest or simply where the visitor had come from.

-These luggage tags could possibly have a question printed on one side with a blank space on the other, where the visitor would write their answer. Possible questions could be ‘Where do you do your weekly shop?’ or ‘What’s your favourite meal?’ or ‘Where are your vegetables from?’ etc. The tags could be picked by the visitor from a ‘lucky dip’ box, perhaps mounted to the wall. These questions would help us to identify visitors’ attitudes towards locally sourced food and the type of food they eat.

- In addition to the tags, a suggestion was made to offer ‘recipe bookmarks’ in return for a visitor’s contribution of the location of e.g. a local greengrocers, a local allotment, a recipe. The bookmarks could help us to promote Grow Sheffield/ Abundance/ our Green Food Map.

- Recipe cards could be given out attached to an apple/ Seeds could be given out along with instructions - ‘a recipe for growing your own vegetables’ etc in return for local knowledge of sustainable food sources. In addition, an email contact or address of a local shop could be included so visitors could track down recipe ingredients for themselves.

- In addition to luggage tags, small flags/ coloured pins etc could be used to locate areas of interest. String could be used to represent a trail - i.e. recipe trail - between points.

- ‘Map of Plenty’ - It was suggested that research be made into what local vegetables/ fruit/ meat/ dairy produce could be sourced in each sub-area in Sheffield, i.e. carrots from Walkley, eggs from Crookes etc. A collage of fruit/ veg/ eggs etc could be created in Photoshop for example and be overlaid with a simplified map of Sheffield, so that the produce collage corresponds with respective sources - i.e. the Walkley area would be set against a background of carrots and so on.

- Small tags with images of local produce printed onto them could be hung on to the map using nails/ hooks, corresponding to the area from which they are sourced. These tags could then be selected by the visitor and stuck to a paper plate to create a ‘meal’ from local ingredients. The visitor would then attach their plate to the shop wall and link it to the map with a piece of string to indicate where they live. They would then be able to take away a fact sheet detailing the source of the ingredients they had chosen, i.e. ‘this apple was grown in Crookes’ etc., so that the ingredients could be obtained and cooked to create the meal in reality.

- A blank ‘wild card’ ingredient tag could be included on the map so that visitors could contribute an item of their own to their ‘meal’ - i.e. something that was not necessarily locally sourced such as marshmallows, etc.

- The Abundance scheme could be tied into the map also, perhaps again with string, and again indicating the source of specific local commodities.

'Map Me'

2008-10-03T09:42:00.004+01:00

Mapping of social networks in Adelaide using 2d & 3d methods for two weeks in a gallery space. People were invited to add links on the map using craft materials.

http://analogueartmap.blogspot.com/

The Open Green Map

2008-10-02T14:57:00.003+01:00

The Open Green Map movement has already a number of maps in existence. You can view them here. Thanks to JB for the heads up.

Feast

2008-10-02T11:13:00.003+01:00

Have a look at Claire Patey's initiatives also through LIFT : the original 'Feast' and the 'Feast' on the bridge in September

What's in a name?

2008-10-02T10:34:00.003+01:00

With that in mind... if we want to get a Google map online as soon as possible, then we could do with deciding on a URL (presuming we buy a new one).

So... suggestions... GO!

What Rhymes With Sheffield Green Food Map?

2008-10-02T09:36:00.002+01:00

Does the Sheffield Green Food Map have a better name yet?

When I spoke to Leon last week he said Grow Sheffield were keen on an alternative- especially as it was meant to be 'more than a map'.

Leon said he had something in mind but wasn't giving it away...

it had something to do with Sheffield slang for food...

...sounds like a game to me

What's your guess?

Edward Tufte

2008-10-01T20:59:00.003+01:00

Has written good books on mapping and general information display. Slightly 'old school' but good nonetheless.

'Envisioning Information'

'Beautiful Evidence' - I have this

'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information'

'Visual Explanations'

They should all be in the library.

If you can eat London, why not eat Sheffield?

2008-10-01T20:45:00.004+01:00

'Eat London' was a physical food map of central London, curated by LIFT, who produce interactive cultural experiences which enable people to make meaningful connections on a local, national and international level. Each grid square was made by a marginal community group with food specific to their cultural and ethnic background. The squares were then assembled in Trafalgar Square on Saturday April 27th 2007 to create a food map of London. Then it was eaten! Roads were made of gingerbread, the gherkin from grapes, buildings from cake, Houses of Parliament from cucumber sandwiches, the London Eye from two vertical pizzas. For more photos click here. For more about LIFT, click here (unfortunately they have just updated their website and removed the 'eat london' photos. They do have a cool tent designed by AOC however...

The Big British Food Map

2008-10-01T16:27:00.003+01:00

Channel 4's Andrew Webb is eating his way around Britain on peoples recommendations, adding the public's favourite places to the Big British Food Map.

Add your own here:

Channel 4 Big British Food Map

d.r.

testing

2008-10-01T11:35:00.001+01:00

Jay sucks

Testing.

2008-10-01T11:01:00.000+01:00

This project blog is now live.