The event was funded by Stoke-on-Trent Public Health Department and supported by the Community Animation Social Innovation Centre (CASIC), being a key milestone in the application made by Stoke City to become a Sustainable Food City.   This community food network is a legacy of the research on food poverty/security carried out  by Dr. Emma Surman (associate director of CASIC) in collaboration with New Vic Borderlines.  

Over 100 attendees heard a plenary talk from Joan Walley, former MP for Stoke-On-Trent North from 1987 to 2015.  Joan talked of her own love of food as well as its importance in tackling many issues of health and well being in the local community. She was then joined for a panel debate by Sharon Bates, Headteacher from Mill Hill Primary Academy in Tunstall, Sadie Haynes and Ronnie Kinsell from Tesco and Katrina Hull, Senior Health Improvement Specialist from Public Health at Stoke-on-Trent Council.  The session was chaired by Dr Emma Surman (CASIC) and panelists were asked to share their personal vision of a sustainable food city and to outline the work they had been involved with as well as what they felt still needed to be done.  The discussion was then opened up to the audience for wide ranging and lively debate.

During the lunch break attendees were able to meet with children from local schools who were eager to talk about the work they and their fellows pupils had been taking to improve understanding of and access to good food in their schools and local area.   There was also the opportunity to meet with the Local Allotment association as well as the Princes Trust charity.

The day came to a close with a powerful performance by New Vic Borderlines and their community theatre group of a play written and directed by Sue Moffat ‘Hungry for Change’.  This play was developed following a research project into community responses to food poverty funded by the Heseltine Institute at Liverpool university involving collaboration between the universities of Keele, Liverpool and Royal Holloway, University of London.