Our latest news, blogs, ideas, tips and opinion pieces
Business Model Blog Cockermouth Country Market
In this series of blogs, Lynne Davis from the Open Food Network, describes the business models of some of the food hubs and producers in their community. Here, in the fourth blog of the series, Lynne introduces Cockermouth Country Market.
Business Model: Blog Sole of Discretion
In this series of blogs, Lynne Davis, CEO of the Open Food Network, describes the business models of some of the food hubs and producers in their community. Here, in the third blog of the series, she introduces Sole of Discretion. Sole of Discretion is a radically...
Interested in a career in ethical marketing? We are hiring!
We are currently looking for one Junior Marketing Team Member to join The Open Food Network for an exciting new project where we will be supporting inspiring food enterprises with their marketing. The Open Food Network is a community and software backbone for food...
Business Model Blog: Bowhouse Link
In this series of blogs, Lynne Davis, CEO of the Open Food Network, describes the business models of some of the food hubs and producers in their community. Here, in the second blog of the series, Lynne introduces Bowhouse Link. Bowhouse, based in the East Neuk of...
Business Model Blog: Tamar Valley Food Hub
In this series of blogs, Lynne Davis, CEO of the Open Food Network, describes the business models of some of the food hubs and producers in their community. Here, in the first blog of the series, Lynne introduces Tamar Valley Food Hub. Tamar Valley Food Hub is an...
What does it look like to have a right to food?
In this blog, Cobi Akinrele suggests that it is the imagining of poverty as something which affects ‘others’, that has contributed to much of the inertia to food justice in Britain. “Feed the World! Let them know it’s Christmas again”. These are the famous...
OFN Platform updates
Development Explained! The Open Food Network is a platform cooperative - a software platform running with cooperative principles. Our goal has always been that the community of food enterprises using the Open Food Network are co-owners, designers and creators of...
Technical infrastructure to enable an agroecological transition
Online food retail has exploded in response to COVID-19. This shift to online represents a huge opportunity to transform sales and logistics so that agroecological farming can regenerate our world. In this article I explore technical infrastructure that can support...
Building food equality means investing in communities
In our Building Food Equality project, OFN UK are working to demonstrate the important role that community food enterprises play in addressing systemic inequality in our food system. In this blog Lynne Davis gives a background to the work. High quality food is...
A video showcase of how community food enterprises work
There are many wonderful and different approaches to creating and running a community food enterprise. In this blog, we explore some examples from a webinar in which we invited Locavore Glasgow, New Dawn Traders, Helston Local Food Hub and Y Pantri Glas to talk...
Celebrating nature and following its rhythms
Can you hear the birds chirping outside your window? This is the sound of Spring! The days are getting longer - finally! We will soon be leaving the dark half of the year and embracing the early spring rays of the Sun! Soon, it will be time to celebrate the Spring...
How to evade the Hungry Gap: an ethical guide for eaters and sellers
The hungry gap is a time when seeds that you’ve sown aren’t ready and whatever you stored in the winter isn’t good to eat anymore. In this blog post, we’ll look at what the hungry gap is in more detail. We’ll explore the gap’s origins, why we should embrace it and...
Open Food Network wins the award for digital innovation in the European Social Economy Awards
There were more than 500 nominations for this award from all over Europe. Open Food Network Europe gets the prize in the section about social economy initiatives operating in the digital economy or with an important focus on technological innovation and/or working...
Hybiau Caffael Bwyd Cynaliadwy yng Nghymru
Dros y flwyddyn ddiwethaf, mae'r Open Food Network UK wedi bod yn gweithio ar gynllun peilot arloesol i ddangos dichonoldeb cyflenwi bwyd lleol ar blât cyhoeddus Cymru. Gan weithio gyda phartneriaid o Ffermydd a Gerddi Cymdeithasol, Cultivate, Cymdeithas...
Sustainable Food Procurement Hubs in Wales
Over the past year, the Open Food Network (OFN) has been working on a groundbreaking pilot to demonstrate the feasibility of supplying local food onto the Welsh public plate. Working with partners from Social Farms & Gardens, Cultivate, Development Trusts...
In response to the Food Research Collaboration’s discussion paper
Natalie Neumann and Rosalind Sharpe from the Food Research Collaboration have created a Food Research Collaboration Discussion Paper titled “Sustainable food hubs and food system resilience: Plugging gaps or forging the way ahead?”This is the last report in the...
Open source tech: why you should care and how you can contribute
Open source is an integral part of who we are at the Open Food Network: our platform, the way we work and much more. It’s even in our name! So, let’s talk about it. In today’s society, open source software exists as an antithesis to the systems we have grown...
Women in Food and Farming
From farmers and food hub coordinations to home cooks and food tech developers, women are central to our food systems world wide. But other systems, like the patriarchy, undermine their contribution. At the Open Food Network, we try to counteract the impact of...
Starting the year at the Oxford Real Farming Conference
It was a great opportunity for us to share with our community some of the great work we have been doing and connect with like-minded people in an environment like the ORFC. And, we left Oxford full of hope and energy after meeting, hearing, and witnessing amazing speakers from all over the world.
The Open Food Network team goes to Hereford
Let’s try to picture the mycelium, billions of intricate connections building nature’s very own communication network. This, for us, is what we see the Open Food Network becoming. A network that connects people to each other to help build inter-connected communities.
As a fully remote team, connecting online can be easy with all the technology at our disposal. But connecting on a deeper level is harder, the same way it is harder for each of us individually to relate to each other and ourselves when we spend a lot of our time behind a screen.