SEI researchers awarded ARC linkage funding for Sydney Food Incubator

By Eloise Fetterplace, Sydney Environment Institute

Co-director Professor David Schlosberg, SEI Key Researcher, Dr Alana Mann, and former SEI PhD Candidate, Dr Luke Craven (now based at UNSW Canberra) have been awarded $423,500 funding for an ARC Linkage Project to develop, implement and evaluate a food business incubator in the City of Sydney.

The project will be run in collaboration with the City, TAFE NSW and FoodLab Detroit, and aims to address food insecurity by assisting vulnerable populations to participate in the development of new food enterprises.

The goal of the incubator is to empower individuals and communities, improving quality of life for vulnerable people experiencing food insecurity in Sydney, while also creating economic opportunities in the form of greater participation in new food enterprises.

“The project has the potential to bring real and substantive change to the lives of Sydney-siders who face food insecurity on a daily basis,” said Professor Schlosberg.

The pilot will foster the development of food-based start-up businesses, providing education and training for people who are disadvantaged to develop sustainable social enterprises. It will focus on the development of a network of businesses that increase the wider community’s access to healthy and affordable food.

Earlier this year the City of Sydney included the incubator as a key element of their social sustainability action plan, which sets out the cities strategy for sustaining a ‘socially just and resilient Sydney’ over the next decade.

At least 90 residents are expected to participate in the pilot program. They will be engaged through the city’s networks of housing communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and refugee and asylum seeker communities.

Header image: by Michael Browning via Unsplash