Creating fair, sustainable and resilient local food systems, with Berbel Franse

Berbel talks about her collective action work at Food Fairness Illawarra and how championing local food has contributed to fairer, more sustainable and more resilient food systems. Berbel details the latest FFI projects including updating the website and the new online Wollongong Farmers Market as well as giving an insight into her learning of how to achieve effective collective action in the food system space. 

Further content:

• Healthy Cities Illawarra can be found here 
• Food Fairness Illawarra can be found here
• Online Wollongong Farmers Market Instagram page 

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CREDITS

Host: Sophie Wright-Pedersen

With thanks to Berbel Franse for her time and thoughts

The Foodies in the Field podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was made, the Turrbal and Yuggera people, as well as the lands from where Berbel was speaking and where you may be listening from today. We pay respects to elders both past and present and acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were the first foodies of this nation. 

Transcript

Sophie: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Public Health Nutrition from Foodies in the Field, a podcast showcasing stories from passionate foodies about who they are and what they do. I'm Sophie Wright-Pedersen, your podcast host, and on today's show we have Berbel Franse, who's a health promotion officer in food security and food sustainability at Healthy Cities Illawarra, where her main role is as the coordinator of Food Fairness Illawarra. I've actually known Berbel for a number of years now as both a friend, but also as a colleague. As one of my first roles was with Healthy Cities Illawarra in a cooking based nutrition program. In this episode, you'll hear Berbel talking about what led her to pursuing a career in this area and all the fantastic projects that she's coordinated over the years, including the very recent Wollongong Online Farmer's Markets.

Hi Berbel. Welcome to the show. 

Berbel: Thanks, Sophie. It's great being here. 

Sophie: So I'm going to start today's episode by asking you what your favourite food experience has been?

Berbel: If I think of some of my favourite food experiences, they all come down to sharing good food with good friends. Like what does come to mind is I have lived for the last seven years in a house where we have this massive table that probably fits comfortably, 12 people, maybe 14 in a bit more of a cosy kind of style.

And it is often when that table is full of people and we are sharing food, that I actually do have those moments that I, it just makes me so happy. And I don't know if it's the foods, the company, probably just the combination of it all, but it's really that sense of community that food sort of catalyses. 

Sophie: And that's definitely one of the things that I really enjoy about food and being the professional within the food space is being able to connect so easily with people, whether that's through your personal life or through your professional life when food is a medium. 

Berbel: Absolutely. And I think when we share food, we often share so much more than just the food that we eat. Yeah. 

Sophie: So you've been with Healthy Cities Illawarra for a number of years now as a health promotion officer working in food security and food sustainability. How many years has it been? 

Berbel: Wow. I think it actually has been seven years. 

Sophie: That's been a while. 

Berbel: Quite a while. 

Sophie: That's crazy. You did other work before that, that wasn't necessarily within that same space, so I just wanted to get a bit of a background on what you did before the role that you're currently in, and how all of that led you to what you're doing now? 

Berbel: I graduated with a bachelor in Supply Chain Management, which followed with a graduate position at Blue Scope Steel in their supply chain management department. Within the four years that I worked at Blue Scope Steel, I had multiple roles across the steel supply chain. And while I'm still intrigued about supply chain and supply chain management, particular when it comes to achieving efficiencies and minimizing waste, my focus has very much shifted from steel towards the food supply chain.

Sophie: I think it's really relevant because, I mean, at the moment with the food supply, Covid and everything that's been happening, that skillset and obviously that knowledge within that space is so critical because we've seen food shortages across supermarkets and stuff in Australia. Over the past two years. Have you thought about your skills within the supply chain management industry?

Berbel: Yeah, absolutely. And it is something that even early last year or like last year when we had the bush fires and we had covid as well as the droughts, all collating, it was particular then that it's made me think of what can we do to build more resilience within our local community. And so that's actually one of the projects that I'm currently working towards called the Wollongong Online Farmer's Market, which is actually one of the solutions to that supply chain disruptions. Because by making food supply chains shorter, they're less prone to those disruptions, in particular national or international disruptions.

Sophie: What is it about local food production that makes our food systems more efficient?

Berbel: More efficient in that if food is produced locally, it actually does not need to be transported. To the extent that bananas from Queensland need to be transported or maybe actually garlic from China. You can also imagine the refrigeration that's involved in the transport as well as the packaging that often is involved in the transport as well is not necessary when we are producing our food locally.

And it also means that we're actually investing in our own community and to make sure that jobs and local businesses are still around in [00:05:00] a number of years. 

Sophie: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's so interesting that you started in supply chain management and supply chain logistics and it's gotten you to working in the food space, but other things did as well. What else kind of led you to? 

Berbel: After working in the steel industry for four years, I actually had the opportunity to spend a year in Ghana and that's actually where my passion to tackle some of our current food system issues started living in a country where there is a large percentage of the population malnourished, and food insecure. I actually witnessed a significant amount of food being wasted prior to reaching the marketplace, and that was devastating. In particular, again, with that supply chain lens on it, I really realized that it was mostly due to lack of sufficient logistics infrastructure. 

Sophie: What are some examples of where it was getting wasted?

Berbel: So in Ghana, I found that it was mostly wasted prior to reaching the marketplace. Just imagine lack of cool rooms in incredibly hot and humid climates. Or transportation that just arrives a few days late without any notice. Or really poor packaging in combination with a seriously bumpy roads like, like transporting ripe tomatoes in a hessian sack.

Sophie: Or like eggs, for example.

Berbel: Or eggs. Yeah. So you can just imagine how wastage ends up there. And it was really interesting that on, on the other hand, when foods reached the people at the Ghanaian markets people actually would eat everything like tripe, fish heads, chicken bones, slightly rotten tomatoes for extra flavour. Like nothing actually was going to waste if it was slightly edible.

And I think that's where we, over here in Australia, for example, really have something to learn because here in Australia, it's actually almost the opposite. A lot of the food wastage that happens is actually in our homes. That learning by itself is actually something that really motivated me to start a food waste initiative called Hidden Harvest in 2015, who still continue to educate the community by providing the tools and thoughts to tackle food waste and shape a more sustainable food future.

And it is the work through Hidden Harvest like running workshops and community dinners that I connected to Healthy Cities, Illawarra and eventually resulted in a role as a health promotion officer in food security and food sustainability. And I guess coming with that background in supply chain management, but also along the way, I did a master's in sustainability sciences.

I actually brought to a team that had a lot of health promotion or public health focused roles. I actually brought a really interesting skillset because I was not looking at issues like food insecurity or food sustainability from a public health perspective, but I actually was looking at it at from a supply chain or more sustainability perspective.

So yeah, it was quite interesting to find that diversity within the team at Healthy Cities. But I also feel that I had the opportunity to learn so much because I was working with colleagues that had so much knowledge about things that I didn't per se have so much knowledge about, like dieticians.

Sophie: Absolutely. I think over the past seven years we've seen a more focused integration of sustainability and environmental concerns within the public health space. 

Berbel: Yeah, there's been some really exciting developments, I think.

Sophie: I think it is people like you who have these very different perspectives of what food means and what food has a role in and how much it can add to public health nutrition, and food systems in general when we have a multidisciplinary team of people working towards very similar issues. And that leads me into asking you about what are you currently doing at Healthy Cities Illawarra. 

Berbel: So a big part of my role here at Healthy Cities has been coordinator of Food Fairness, Illawarra, which is a community coalition that has worked since 2005 to make healthy and sustainable food available and affordable for all.

We are guided by the three councils, which is Wollongong, Shellharbour, and Kiama Council, a local health district, the university, as well as a wider network of individuals, community groups, charities, as well as some non for-profit organizations, who all recognize the need for collaboration to unlock fairer food solutions.

And our vision as a coalition is underpinned by the four dimensions of food security, of [00:10:00] which the first one is availability. Growing a vibrant local food culture, and economy, which supports growth and produce. Access: enabling Illawarra residents to access affordable, culturally appropriate, nutritious, sustainable, and local food. Use and utilization: enhancing food knowledge and skills within our community to make healthy food choices the norm and accessible to all. And the last one is stability, which is more or less focused on the coordination of a well-structured coalition to enable collective action. What we do to enable collective action within this exciting fair food space is we connect and collaborate, we advocate, we empower, we educate. 

Sophie: What do you mean by fair food? 

Berbel: I think fair food is that there's such a depth of what fair food is. I really think that the four dimensions of food security are this really fantastic way of underpinning our goal to make healthy and sustainable food available and affordable because it looks at in particular the first three dimensions of food insecurity are really highlighting that it is not an availability issue by itself. It is not an access issue by itself. Or a using/utilization issue by itself, it, it is such a complex issue that those three dimensions are really important to have in your vision while you're trying to tackle food insecurity as a whole. And stability is one. Even though it's the last one, it's something that particular during a time of covid, it is the stability of our food system that is actually challenging our food security is just, it's such a complex issue, but so is the food system. It's so complex. It's impacted by so many different levers. 

Sophie: Yeah. And then I guess from like thinking about how complex that is, you got given this portfolio of Food Fairness Illawarra when you started the role and it had been going since 2005. And you came in, how did you know where to start and where to go from there? 

Berbel: The biggest task within Food Fairness Illawarra is as a community coalition, it's not, it's actually not about me doing things. The biggest role is about facilitating, bringing together a community to connect to nourish, to inspire, and to have more collective action happening within our region.

So my role as a facilitator and a connector I have seen as my biggest role within Food Fairness, Illawarra. And probably one of the things that I remember getting to start with, we had a distribution list that from time to time when the some information came through, we would just send an email to this distribution list, and I believe it was about maybe a hundred people on that distribution list.

But the communication was quite, not very exciting, a bit sporadic, as well as not actually formatted. And as I started, and even though I, I didn't have per se a comms background, but I had the opportunity to actually learn about platforms like Mail Chimp and learn the power of more structured communication, which I then introduced for Food Fairness Illawarra and started a monthly newsletter, which started off with a hundred recipients, which eventually grew to, I do believe we've got over 2000 recipients now.

Sophie: Oh my gosh.

Berbel: That's very exciting to be able to communicate to this fantastic community that obviously is passionate about fair food in one way or the other.

Sophie: A couple of questions there. What content are you putting into the newsletter and how did you determine what should be in there? And then who do you think is actually receiving that newsletter?

Berbel: Over the, over the years, our newsletter strategy has evolved, and what we do try is that our newsletter includes a number of events that our community can participate in. So any fair food event like Wasted Wednesday, which is a community dinner hosted by Hidden Harvest, or it might be a workshop in beekeeping, but it's all connected to fair food.

As well as we do have a research section, we often have a fair food champion that is highlighted. So it might be a researcher that has just come up with some really interesting research around fair food. It all depends, or it might be one of our fantastic producers who we just like to highlight for their fantastic work.

Or it might be an agency in food relief. It's, we also includes opportunities to participate. So this is where the real advocacy component comes in, where we call up on our community to join into our participation campaigns against, for [00:15:00] example, another McDonald's starting up in the Illawarra. Or it might be to submit their vision for Wollongong as a sustainable council area, but it is really to activate that community and to provide them with pathways to participate towards building that fair food future. 

Sophie: And I think it's, I think it's just amazing that you're communicating with over 2000 people a month now. Why was the focus on having a coalition of people and what have you found from having such an activated community in this space?

Berbel: Particularly during Covid, we actually came together with a number of players within the food security space and were able to really quickly respond to the Covid situation and establish a number of food hubs that provided emergency food relief to people in a positive covid situation, which is something that I believe would've not been possible if it wasn't for those existing relationships and trusted connections that we had, as well as Food Fairness as well, well as sort of a leader in that space. So it was easy for us to take that lead then and there in that crisis and bring people together because that was something that we'd done for so many years that it wasn't new for us. And it definitely enabled us for that collective action in that crisis moment, which I think would've been really challenging if it wasn't for that established kind of trust. 

Sophie: And you touched on like stopping another McDonald's coming to the Illawarra did you manage to stop that? 

Berbel: No, unfortunately not. McDonald's even took ruling on council to court. So it was great to see the council also object in the first instance. But unfortunately, McDonald's won a court case, so. 

Sophie: Oh, that's such a shame. I mean, there's not much you can do, but did you have many people putting submissions in?

Berbel: Yeah, we did have quite a bit of interaction. What we did to really create a pathway for our community was we created a template letter that people could send to either Wollongong council or our M.P's, or actually to McDonald's themselves and just say, we do not want you why do you come? And we made it so that they only needed to fill out their names, their details. Choose one or two of the reasons that we've collated. We had five or six reasons why people may not want a Macca's in their backyard and they actually send it. So we had in total, I do believe, like in terms of the actual article and people that actually interacted with the campaign was over a hundred people. So that's really exciting to see that over a hundred people are actually engaged with it.

Sophie: As much as that might have not have been successful in the Illawarra those types of things have been successful across the country with, even in the Northern Territory, I can think of stopping a Dan Murphy's from being established within Darwin because of such low like alcohol prices and the effect that that would have on the community. And so even with things that don't work, it doesn't mean you're not going to do it again. 

Berbel: When we are, um, creating these campaigns. We also sort of are waiting for the policy windows within that. When we're talking about advocacy, that's what we're often kind of waiting for. And it's really, really interesting to see that the recent community engagement activity of Wollongong Council had seen a greater interest in foods than they've ever seen before. And that's really fantastic. That is really, really fantastic. And whether that was because our campaign was so successful, or whether that was because I guess after the first few waves of Covid, people have become more aware of the food system and how vulnerable it is and whichever one it was, it's just really exciting that people are talking about food and that community, um, engagement activity is going to translate in a community strategic plan and the higher food is on the agenda, the more activity will happen around food. And I just think that's fantastic. So I think advocacy, it's, it is a lot of hard work, but I always think it's worth it. 

Sophie: Absolutely. It's really important. I mean, you just have to look at the Ottawa Charter for example, which is kind of this foundation for public health. And in the centre of that is advocacy. Like it is a very well recognised mechanism to enable change because without it, we don't get public policy. We don't get sustainable change. You've talked about a few projects you've done with Food Fairness Illawarra , but I just wanted to get you to elaborate on some of them. 

Berbel: I think one of the very exciting project is that we had the opportunity to upgrade our website, and I guess when I talk about upgrading the website, we actually really wanted to make it an educational resource that people could [00:20:00] really, in a practical sense, interact with. We have a really extensive Fair Food Directory website as one of the components, and that Fair Food Directory, for example, gives anyone who has a look on the website a really good overview of all the different NGO's that are working in the food space. All the different food relief agencies that are providing low cost and free meals. It actually also lists all the vegetable producers in the Illawarra. So it gives a really good overview of all the fantastic and diverse foods assets we've got in our region, so anything around food.

We also have a directory that lists all the organizations that would accept food donations, which is linked to our guide to food donations because there's a lot of food that ends up going into the bin for no reason. That can actually be distributed to some of these fantastic organizations that then provided to their community who might be finding themselves in a food stress situation.

So that's one of the components. The next one is we have also a really practical, Fair Food Fields Guide, which is very much written in a sense, for example, grow your own food and why it is important, but then also how you can do it. Whether it is growing, starting a veggie garden, growing food on a balcony, keeping bees, starting to compost.

It's written in a really practical sense that it's little snippets of information, but it's really making fair foods more achievable in the sense of dicing it up in little bits like you can do little, little, little tiny actions. And you are contributing to building that fair food system. Yeah. And so the third element of it is an interactive Fair Food events calendar where there's a lot of different events that sort of sits in that Fair Food kind of space to engage our community to interact to, to nourish themselves through dinners or to actually learn more and develop their skills or to, to be inspired by other people doing fantastic things in our community. It's really exciting to see that in comparison to our old site. It just looks beautiful , first of all, but it also is really exciting to look back into and the analytics of it and to actually see the visitation of that website is actually really, oh, it's like quadrupled in comparison to the old website, which is really exciting because you then realize that you're reaching four times more people with information about how they can contribute to building that fair food system. So it's again, really focusing on that collective action.

We're all working towards the same goal, but we might not be doing it all at the same time or all in the same way, but we are all contribute to the same goal.

Sophie: I think it's really interesting that you incorporate so much evaluation into your work. You've touched on a few times we've measured this or we've looked at that. And even with the website, you've said you've had four times more people visiting it. Why do you incorporate that so much and what do you find that's important about that? 

Berbel: I think we learn so much from reflecting on our own work and evaluating our work, and it is sometimes, I think evaluation is often overlooked in particular when we're busy just doing, doing, doing. It just would be such a shame to be doing something that actually doesn't actually work towards the goal that you're trying to achieve. 

Sophie: I've looked at the Food Fairness Illawarra website I've seen the directory in that used to be a paper-based format, and it's so good to see an online format. How do you go about making sure that that's all up to date?

Berbel: So we have developed the online directory as a directory that can be updated by the individual users or the individual listings. So the majority of listings that are within the directory can be updated by the agencies themselves. Which is fantastic. I, however, do know that that doesn't always happen, so it is something that we need to remind people about of like, Hey, just a reminder of if anything's changed, please update your details.

For the directories that have been really important during Covid, for example, our Low Cost and Free Meals Directory, that is one that we here in the office will go and call all the different agencies to make sure their details are up to date so that anyone of community members now for the first time find themselves in a food stress situation that they know exactly where to go and what's available to them.

So that's something that we've definitely prioritized. I do have the absolute, I should say honour, but also privilege to be working with a bunch of amazing volunteers and interns here at Healthy Cities that really support [00:25:00] the delivery of this. 

Sophie: I was actually about to ask you about that because where do you find those volunteers?

Berbel: We, over the years, I have been able to identify aspects of my role that could easily be done by interns or volunteers, but also, while it can easily be done it also poses a really exciting development opportunity for volunteers or interns. I guess I'm passionate. I'm passionate about creating a more local, sustainable and resilient food system here in Illawarra through the help and support of volunteers. I actually can do a lot more within my role than I would be ever able to do if I was just by myself. And in addition, they often bring such a wealth of knowledge, excitement, and I actually learn a lot from them again.

Sophie: A lot of them are students, like university students.

Berbel: Yeah, a lot of them, my students, so over the years have developed a really good understanding of the different opportunities with the university that are available to bring volunteers or interns into the organization. But also we often post internal opportunities on our socials and get lots of responses.

Sophie: Yeah. And they're from multiple disciplines too. And like you say, we learn so much from having those different disciplines on these types of projects as well. 

Berbel: The communications of Food Fairness are supported by three interns. And these three interns I often try to have, ideally one who is maybe come from a bit of a comms or marketing background, one public health, and maybe someone from human geography or environmental science.

Just a bit of a combination of people, so we have those different perspectives is always really great to combine because they learn so much from each other. I learn from them, and I'm a big believer in that skill diversity for sure. 

Sophie: One of the other big things that you have done or Food Fairness has done over the years is the event Connecting Over Fair Food.

Berbel: It's with heavy heart that we have decided only yesterday to delay our annual Connecting Over Fair Food to October, and the reason being Covid, we've really been looking forward to have a physical event. So Connecting Over Fair Food is an event that is all about connecting, inspiring, nourishing, a fair food community, bringing them together for an evening of learning, eating good food.

But it is an event that's been going for, this would be its fifth or sixth year, which is really exciting. So it is really exciting. It's a regional event. We've got Wollongong, Shell Harbor and Kiama Council on board, as well as the university to make this event happening. 

Sophie: And knowing that that's going to be in October, but what other projects are you working on at the moment?

Berbel: I am actually really excited to be working on a project that I guess not only combines my passion for a more local, sustainable and resilient food system with my supply chain management skills, which is a project that I actually spoke about earlier, which is the Wollongong Online Farmer's Market to boost access to local and sustainably produced food in our region.

It'll be launching in March and it more or less will be a click and collect for local and sustainable food. So each week this online market will be stocked by 30 local producers with fresh and delicious produce. Ready for people to shop between Friday and Monday so they can go online, look at all the different amazing local products that are made available by our local producers, and we then get them to pick it up every Thursday or we deliver to them.

Sophie: When you go into the platform, will it be like, I can choose foods from this producer, but also this one and that one and all of that will be in one box and then you go and pick it up?

Berbel: It's exactly how you're saying. It's different local producers, it means you're actually doing one order, but across maybe five different producers. They all deliver to our food hub here at Healthy City, our office, and we pack them in boxes and then these orders are picked up or delivered. I guess It's a project that I'm really excited about because it really provides our local producers with an additional distribution channel for their products, but it also really boosts access to locally produced food. 

Sophie: How did this idea come about? Because obviously farmer's markets have been around for a very long time. What kind of sparked the idea for this? 

Berbel: We initially were really looking to establish a physical farmer's market, and so what we do often here at Healthy Cities, when we scope a project, we really look at the [00:30:00] potential, the project, the risk. Have focus groups around it. And I guess within the focus groups that we had, we actually talked to a number of the producers who gave us the insight that, yeah, unless a farmer's market is absolutely pumping a farmer's market is a lot of effort on the producer's behalf where they need to pack their goods, transport, be there for half a day, pay staff with actually no guarantee of sales.

And so we really realized that to really establish a, a physical farmer's market, it probably was something that wasn't really in our budget to really do at this moment in time. But then also, Covid kind of coming through. I guess also to another extent, like kind of looking at setting up a project in a really lean way where the producers, they can actually just focus on the things they do best, which is producing amazing food. And we actually do a lot of the marketing and providing the platform. 

Sophie: Yeah, and it's a guaranteed order. You've talked about the farmer's perspective, but have you consulted with community members or talked to people about how it works for people actually purchasing the food?

Berbel: We did do some focus groups with community members as well. There's a lot of appetite around local food or supporting local businesses, but I do feel, and one of the things that we did come across is that they don't, are aware of the pathways. A lot of people did really like the idea of a physical farmer's market over an online farmer's market. I'm going to say it is one of our, our ultimate goal is to actually have a physical farmer's market.

But sometimes you just need a stepping stone project before you can actually get to that physical farmer's market. And for that to happen, I do believe that we need to not only grow the capacity of our local producers, but also to that demands for local produce. 

Sophie: You talked about people still wanting a physical farmer's market, but I can totally see the opportunity for a blended version where you have both the online component where people can order food and potentially go and pick it up from the farmer's market, but still go to the farmer's market to experience, I guess, that immersion and meet farmers.

Berbel: So that community building aspect that a farmer's market usually brings is something that we've really thought about and we are hoping to incorporate within the Wollongong Online Farmer's Market by actually including a Meet the Maker once a week, but maybe once a month to start off with as a way of still creating that connection between the eaters and the people that actually creates their food, as well as some ready to eat food so that at the pickup location at collection of this box full of amazing local produce. They actually can also connect with other people, but also with one of the producers as well as maybe get some some local ready to eat, um, food.

So we are still trying to incorporate that element. We're just looking at how to do that in combination with the online farmer's market. Yeah, I'm really excited and I also think that some of the producers that we have involved already go to multiple farmer's markets so just the idea of attending another farmer's market might actually be quite a charge on their already really busy lives.

Sophie: Absolutely. I think it's really exciting and I guess we'll see when you launch in March, how it all goes. And so will you have that like linked onto the Food Fairness Illawarra website? Is that how people will be able to access it? 

Berbel: So the Wollongong Online Farmer's Market will have its own social media channels, so Instagram, Facebook, and it will have a web page that is a collaborative project between Food Fairness and Healthy Cities. So it will be hosted on both websites as well as an avenue to head to the online farmer's market, but the actual online farmer's market so the platform of it will be hosted on the Open Food Network, which is a software provider who's designed or like established to really provide producers with the opportunity to sell their produce at a price that they want to sell, which is really exciting to be working with alongside, to actually make a project like this happen.

Sophie: And I mean, that just goes to the roots of Food Fairness Illawarra where you have this coalition of people and organizations. It's always done very well linking in with multiple people to get projects off the ground and happening. So my last few questions for you, one of them being what have been some of the best moments, but also some of the biggest learnings and maybe challenges along the way of working in the space of food systems and and food sustainability and food security that you've experienced? 

Berbel: I think one of the biggest challenges working in a field [00:35:00] that you're incredibly passionate about is finding a work-life balance that is healthy. I feel my passion says yes more often than I actually probably should given the amount of hours in a day. So I think that's one of my biggest challenges and in terms of best moments is standing in a big room filled with people that are all passionate about food at one of our Connecting Over Fair Food events and just standing back and just looking at all these people, seeing them just chat and yeah, I guess it just really makes me excited to see. I'm not doing it by myself, that there's so many amazing people in our region working towards this same goal, and we've got a beautiful community here. Doing all amazing, interesting, different things and we all complement each other. Those moments of actually realizing that are probably what I would call my best moments.

Sophie: I'm not surprised, and I think that's such a beautiful thing to experience and have that support because I think it's something that maybe we don't always get to experience. It's so wonderful. You've established this Connecting Over Fair Food event to really showcase how many people are really passionate about working in this space and and seeing change happen within the space towards a common goal.

And I don't think that a lot of people in our field always get to experience that because we're working positions that where might be the only public health nutritionist or food systems based person. I think it's really nice to be able to have the opportunity to really experience that and see how many people there really are. And not just from, you know, a health field, but from across our entire society really. 

Berbel: Yeah, absolutely. And everyone in their own way. 

Sophie: And then my final question to you is, where do you see the future of this field going? Of food systems and food sustainability and food security, or where would you like to see it go?

Berbel: I think given the current supply chain disruptions that we've experienced, I really, really hope and look forward to working towards a more local, sustainable and resilient food system here in Illawarra that is good for our community. Our environment as well as for our economy. And I'm saying that because I really believe that that is going to help us achieve our goal to ensure that everyone has access to affordable food.

Sophie: And is there anything that you think will help enable that more than what you are currently working on? 

Berbel: I think it's community awareness as well as political will that is required, which is one of the reasons why maybe the silver lining of uncertain periods like covid kind of allow for that to actually happen.

And I think in particular during the first lockdown, we did see a lot of people gravitate to growing their own food, making sourdough and sauerkraut. And I do think that there's been a shift and I think the longer covid continues to be in our life and to continues to interrupt us food supply chains.

Then hopefully the more prevalent local food and sustainable food becomes. 

Sophie: I think one of the biggest things with Food Fairness Illawarra is the effects of having such a successful coalition that's been built over a number of years. And I guess for anyone out there, it's definitely something that's always on people's agenda is how do we get collective action in the space. Do you have any top ticket items as to how someone could go about like establishing something similar in a different area? 

Berbel: I think the success of Food Fairness Illawarra is rooted in having multiple important organizations. involved in that coordination team, but it also, it was started in that sense. So if you trying to say that well it was started by a group of people who attended a poverty week conference in Sydney and they came back, but there were people from Wollongong Council, university, Healthy Cities and New South Wales Health.

So they connected with each other and, and they said, we, we need to do something together in the Illawarra. So I guess that shared responsibility or the insight that we need to collaborate to do something about that. I think that initial vision was really important for the way the coalition grew and I think its passion is the other point. Some of the founding members are still involved in Food Fairness in that really passionate way, which I do think is another' real success element to food fairness as well as funding. We are really lucky. That a number of my days are funded, which helps me facilitate and drive the coalition because I do think that it is really challenging to, um, have a successful coalition.

It is absolutely [00:40:00] possible, but I think it brings different challenges with, it may not be funded and all relying on volunteers. 

Sophie: I think from like my experience of working in spaces where there hasn't been, you know, a specific coalition, is it even just having a dedicated position to running it?

Berbel: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Sophie: Because I've seen that as a limiting factor in other areas where if there isn't a dedicated position as someone, because you've talked about it already, but food security in the food system is, is so complex. Like there's so many factors that feed into it. If you don't have a dedicated position to pull all those strings it can be quite difficult to work out who really should be doing what. 

Berbel: Oh, you are right on the money in regards to that. 

Sophie: Well, we might wrap it up there. So thanks, Berbel it's been so lovely to catch up with you and hear all about you. Food Fairness Illawarra and all the exciting projects in this space.

Berbel: Thanks Sophie. 

Sophie: So for those of you that have been listening, we'll put some links to Food Fairness Illawarra and Healthy Cities in the show notes if you are interested in anything that was talked about on the show. Uh, thanks for listening. And remember, we're on Instagram and Twitter if you'd like to get in touch or ask us any questions.

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