The UK’s food system is under pressure.

We take an in-depth look at how we can work towards flourishing local food systems that build communities, increase food security for all, and provide a fair return to farmers and growers.

Abstract Self-help and mutual aid have been at the heart of the consumer cooperative movement and its response to food insecurity since its inception. Yet how these terms are conceptualized and practiced in contemporary food co-ops often has more to do with their individual histories, ideologies, and the values of those involved than it does the history of the cooperative movement. Drawing on ethnographic examples from two London-based food co-ops with different backgrounds, this article explores how each enacts ideals of aid and exchange. It argues that the context of austerity creates “awkwardnesses” between and within personal values and organizational structures in the face of inequality, leading to blurred boundaries between different models of aid and exchange and the forms of moral accounting that these entail.

The terms food security and food sovereignty originally emerged as separate terms to describe different things. The former is a concept that describes a conditi...

Marcus Rashford has spoken eloquently about what happens when the government does not provide adequate support for food-insecure families. Children we interviewed said the same thing.