Something big is happening in Manchester's sustainable food movement . Over the last week Manchester Veg People (MVP) has seen huge progress in its work to bring together organic farmers and progressive buyers.
MVP is now an official co-op – a unique co-operative to adopt a business model bringing local growers and buyers together in a relationship of trust to plan how we feed Manchester sustainably.
MVP has submitted an RPDE bid for financial support of £60,000 to build the business and bring on-board more local farmers.
On Monday MVP was informed that it has been successful in its Soil Association application for certification, meaning it can use the trusted organic label.
Tuesday's planning meeting was the largest to date with buyers from Unicorn Grocery, DIG Food and crucially the University of Manchester. Along side our existing local organic farmers was our newest member: Abbey Leys Farm.
On Wednesday, we spent the morning at Glebelands City Growers and Moss Brook Organic Growers on a photo-shoot. Executive Chef Martin Smith from the University of Manchester was photographed with our hard working farmers harvesting crops that are destined for the University's canteens.
And on the 20th September, we officially launch our new service supplying the University of Manchester. A tractor, growers and volunteers (dressed as vegetables!), will be travelling down Oxford Road to University Place where they will be displaying and selling their fayre, and promoting the new sustainable food option available at the University's canteens and cafés from the start of this Autumn term.
complementing these developments, Kindling has just completed its evaluation of a pilot project supplying a Chorlton school with organic veg and consulted with volunteers of the recent Land Army pilots.
As a result we are running a few more Land Army pilots in the autumn to try out techniques for harvesting food, (previous outings have focused on weeding) and an Awards for All bid is about to be submitted requesting support to scale the project up in 2012.