We became a charity in March 2019. This achievement built on three years of previous work by many individuals and organisations across the city. The first step was the creation of Exeter Food Network in 2014, in response to the growing number of projects, groups and businesses that had interests relating to local food.
The need for a more strategic, coordinated approach to food issues in Exeter was apparent, so in 2015, a multi-organisation Steering Group was formed. The Exeter Food Network became the Food Exeter partnership, and became one of the UK’s Sustainable Food Cities.
The partnership saw that there was a critical need for work at a strategic level, that is, bringing organisations together to address the many problems relating to food and creating innovative solutions together. Little could be achieved without staff. Until then, all work was done in a voluntary capacity. The decision was made to apply for charity status. We are one of the first food partnerships in the UK to achieve charity status.
