Equality and Social Justice Committee

I'd like to welcome Pearl Costello from Food Sense Wales, and thank you very much indeed for your written paper—very interesting; Hannah Gibbs from Sustain; Chloe Masefield from Bwyd Powys, which is hosted by Cultivate; and, online, we have got Chris Nottingham from the Blaenau Gwent food partnership, which is supported by Tai Calon housing association. So, welcome to all of you.

I'd just like to start by kicking us off by focusing on the Food Standards Agency's latest survey, which says that one in five Welsh residents are food insecure. But, if you dig down into the detail, it's actually 37 per cent of people in areas of deprivation, as you'd expect. So, for some communities, that is a very significant finding. I just wondered if you could briefly all tell us what the scale of the challenges for you, as an organisation, are in supporting people to access healthy, nutritious and affordable food. Pearl, do you want to start?

Yes, I can kick us off. So, thank you very much for having Food Sense Wales and me here to give evidence. We were founded as an organisation in 2018, to drive forward this cross-sector approach to the food system in Wales, and working nationally across Wales to make a food and farming system that's good for people and planet.

I've worked in the food farming and environment sector for over 12 years, seven of which have been with Food Sense Wales, both co-ordinating a local food partnership, Food Cardiff, on the ground, and more recently leading national programmes of work as well. So, that's me.

Come to the question.

In terms of the question, over those 12 years, we've seen enormous shocks to the food system. We've seen things like COVID-19, the impacts of Brexit, the cost-of-living crisis, and the effects of the changing climate, both overseas and in Wales and the UK, on food production. All of this is contributing to the statistics that you've mentioned, in terms of people, on a day-to-day basis, not being able to afford or access food. That situation feels like it's getting worse to a lot of people.

So, that's something that we're seeing all across Wales. I guess that, in terms of our work, very specifically, we're also seeing this response to it, in terms of a good food movement and people coming together to try and address this. So, initiatives such as the local food partnerships, which have been supported by the Welsh Government, are trying to simultaneously tackle the cost-of-living crisis and the affordability of food, while building that longer term infrastructure around it, which we need to be able to build to address some of these shocks.

So, what I would say is that there's a real critical need to scale up and to replicate and embed the good work that is happening to address some of these issues. We can't address the problem of people being unable to access food or afford food without investing and developing the wider food system infrastructure around it. So, that's a bit of an overview from us to start with.

Thank you. Would you like to come in, Hannah?

I'm happy to build on what Pearl was just saying, from Sustain, which is the alliance for better food and farming. So, we look at these challenges of access, but right through to sustainable food and farming, and, similarly, the whole-food-system approach to ensuring that we have sufficient supply, that we have a resilient food system across the UK. So, we take a UK-wide perspective, looking at the full food system.

But we don't, do we? We have it dominated by multinational supermarkets and they decide who gets what. Is that not the case?

Exactly. So, that's what we've been exploring very specifically through a programme called Bridging the Gap, which has been looking at how we bring together these two challenges of sustainable food systems alongside food access and challenges. And so, that programme has been working across Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England to explore what we might be able to put in place to address the whole system together, and, in response to exactly what you've just been saying, Jenny, how we can secure local food systems, local supply chains that have been really centralised by the supermarket model, and that now need to be adapted again to a more localised system that shores up that resilience that you were just mentioning.

Okay. Chloe, briefly.

Do I need to press this? Sorry. Okay.

No, you don't need to touch the microphone.

Okay, thank you. I just wanted to reflect on our work across Powys. We see a lot of examples of really good practice, where there's a small community group or some energy has come around a particular topic, and we've had people who have managed to get access to lots of different types of food. But specifically around the barriers that were mentioned as to why people aren't able to access it, there are three that we tend to focus on. There's the affordability side, which is the lack of finance and ability to actually pay for and purchase that nutritious food. There's also then the lack of time. It can be quite time-consuming to go around different areas and find the nutritious food that you need, especially if you're on a low income. You may have to go to a foodbank, which is only open on certain times and certain days, and then the next day you have to go to a community fridge, which is again open at different times and days. And then, if you're also searching for something that's culturally appropriate, it's harder again to find things, to be able to access the food that you need to eat. And then, not everywhere—. There are some areas that are considered sort of food deserts and, in terms of being able to access food, we've got high streets that are dominated by—not food shops—places where you can't actually purchase any food, and that's also then a problem for people being able to have a balanced diet.

To what extent do you think that the Welsh Government's approach to food policy is starting to address these barriers?

For me, things like free school meals have had a big impact. I think that's been really positive, and certainly we see that as a food partnership—being able to see that every primary school aged child has access to a balanced meal in the daytime at school. The support for the food partnerships and that longer term commitment has been really helpful. The work that we do as a partnership is systems thinking in its nature, which is very challenging to do on short timescales. So, being being able to do it over a longer time period has a big impact on the change that we can deliver. The community food strategy has been really positive as well.

And from the work we've done, speaking to foodbanks in Powys—I can't speak for everywhere else—when we've gone to speak to foodbanks, they're really grateful for that crisis support that they're able to get from the local authorities. But some of the challenges around it, related to the funding, is that sometimes it's very short term or it's got very specific criteria that it's been allowed to fund. Specifically, around the foodbanks, they say they don't know whether they're going to get the funding, and when it comes in it's specifically for a capital item when, actually, what they're lacking is food and they could use it for different things. So, that's been challenging for that crisis support. So, having that more long-term view of things would be helpful, I think, across the whole food system.

Okay. But we have a completely dysfunctional food system: 30 per cent of all food gets thrown away; it doesn't even make it to the plate. So, Chris Nottingham, what what are the key challenges your organisation faces to increase access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food in Blaenau Gwent?

Where we focus our work, really, is on those areas of deprivation, making sure we have a good geographical coverage of where we're trying to help the most vulnerable in our society to access nutritious food. But, yes, as the other contributors have mentioned, we are working within the constraints of our extractive food system, so we experience lots of challenges. We're really reliant on a really active third sector and volunteer workforce, and they are really stretched, working to capacity with limited resources. So, yes, it's a real challenge to follow those principles of access to good food, which are that we want availability, access and utilisation of those foods and for those things to be constant in our communities, and, quite often, it can ebb and flow depending on what's available in communities. And we're trying to work to make those as secure and constant as possible.

Okay. Chris, I'm going to have to ask you to go into a breakout room, because your sound isn't—. We're struggling to hear the important information you're trying to transmit. So, we could get the sound recorders to have a conversation with you, but in a breakout room—is that possible? Yes. Okay, I'm going to move us on and we'll get rejoined by Chris in a moment. Sioned Williams.

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to ask a few more detailed questions on Government strategies in this area. We've touched on them to a certain extent in relation to some of the challenges that you've already outlined. So, thinking specifically now about the Government's Food Matters policy and also the community food strategy, do you think that they do provide a strategic approach to improving access to healthy, affordable and nutritious food? If not, what specific further action would you like to see as part of those strategies? Who would like to go first?

I can go for that one to start with. I think there's a lot of value in the community food strategy and, to an extent, in Food Matters as well, in the way that they have mapped out existing policies across the Welsh Government and how the community food strategy has recognised the importance of the local food partnerships and those place-based approaches that we're hearing about from Chris and from Chloe, and also some of the ambitions around horticulture in the community food strategy with the idea of growing the horticulture sector.

However, what we do see, comparing, potentially, to other nations, is that Scotland have a Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, England have a national food strategy, and Northern Ireland have a framework for food, and what these all do, or do to an extent that the Food Matters and community food strategy don't, is look at that wider national food plan and national food resilience plan. I spent some time with colleagues up in Scotland just before Christmas to understand what the good food nation Act is and what it will mean in terms of implementation. I'm not 100 per cent sure whether legislation is the right method for it, because I know they have challenges with the time of implementation and so on, but what it does have is that clear vision with defined outcomes of what they want to see from the food system, with clear targets and goals for that. And what I noted was that the idea behind that good food nation Act and the associated plan is that it guides the actions of Scottish Ministers when making policy that relates to food. So, I think Food Matters covers what's in existing policies and how they relate to each other, but what we don't have is that forward-looking vision of how food policy is made in future. So, some of the targets, for example, in the Scottish Act were things like doubling the amount of farmland under organic production and a target for fewer than 5 per cent of children living in absolute poverty by 2030, and it's all together in one action plan as well. So, that's the sort of thing. I'm sure it would look different in Wales, but having something that provides that national food resilience plan would go a long way.

Thank you. Did anyone else want to come in? Just to develop on that, what you're saying is that what we have at the moment isn't providing that pathway towards the outcome that we want to see, namely improved access to healthy, affordable and nutritious food. So, there are no targets and there is no pathway leading to that. Would that be fair to say?

Yes, I think that would be fair to say.

Okay, thank you—

Sioned, Chloe want to come in.

Sorry. Thank you. I wanted to add just slightly that it would be really useful for us as a food partnership to see food embedded across a number of different policy areas. Particularly in the work that we're doing at the moment on civil food resilience, we've been working with the local resilience forums, and they just haven't really acknowledged the emergency and the risks associated with food supply and the fact that it might suddenly not be available. We're doing a project at the moment across Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, the Dyfed-Powys area, where we're building the first steps of our civil resilience plan for the area, working with the local resilience forums, and it's been an interesting discussion trying to get that acknowledgement of food across those different sectors, because, often, in emergency planning, food hasn't been in there. It's moving towards that direction, but I think embedding it across the different policies would also be useful.

Is that influenced by Tim Lang's work for the food—

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you. Sioned.

I think, Pearl, you, in the evidence that you provided to us, have said that the current Government efforts to address the multiple challenges that face the food system remain fragmented across numerous policy areas. So, what changes are required to address that?

So, I think I can give an example of where things—. I think things are moving into, potentially, a less fragmented situation. So, there have been some improvements in this. Particularly notable is the funding of the local food partnerships from both the social justice portfolio and from climate change and rural affairs, and how those two departments have worked together on something systematic to do with food. So, those are two departments working together, which is a very positive thing, but we know that food spans almost every single portfolio within the Welsh Government—for example, health, education and the foundational economy and so on. So, it is a complex area and it is hard to work towards unified food policy making across Government—it's not an easy thing to do—but I would like to see more ambition to do that. I think having something that overarches and goes across Government to provide that vision would support with that. I know in the past we've previously advocated for a food commission, for example, as an independent body to support and oversee and provide scrutiny for that decision making, so that's one option that could work. But I think that having that overall resilience plan, or national food strategy or however you would call it, would support with that.

Thank you. Just one final question in terms of that balance between funding emergency food aid provision and then supporting those long-term preventative solutions to tackle food poverty: do you think that the Government is striking that right balance at the moment, or, again, what changes would you like to see if not?

Can I come in very briefly on that before I go across to—? I'm sure Chris and Chloe will have much more to say on this, but I think we've seen a real transition over the last five years from quite a lot of emergency food aid support in—proportionately a lot, not necessarily a lot in the scheme of things, but proportionately more focus on the emergency food aid, because of the crises that we've been through, and it makes a lot of sense that we need to support households in the here and now with the emergencies they've faced. But there has been a transition, I think, to more preventative measures and investing in those structural changes, and that's been a really positive shift. Things such as the development of the local food partnerships are really looking at those root causes and looking at trying to create that balance. It would be interesting to see—. I don't think we've got the figures on, if we looked across the whole of Government, what's going into preventative measures versus what's going into more emergency measures, so I think it would be really useful to actually see what that looks like.

So, we're in a process at the moment where we're trying to identify a system that might work. I do think place-based approaches would be better than perhaps broader strategic broad-brush approaches, because we feel this quite strongly in Powys; we're quite different to, for example, cities like Cardiff, and things that work in our areas are going to be different to other areas. And we've been working—. As a food partnership, we've gone out and spoken to feed back users, volunteers there and managers, and we're trying to build an approach that would work to deliver a more sustainable food system for all the people who are currently accessing the emergency food provision, and we're looking to build more of a food-ladders approach, which—. Just for anyone who's not familiar with it, currently, the system is that, if you have enough money, you can buy food at the full price, and then that gets harder and harder, and then you get to a point where, suddenly, you have to access free food, and there's no in between; there are no ladders up and down. And there are people who, if you could access that subsidised food, perhaps wouldn't get to the point of crisis, and you would be able to keep a more sustainable food system going in the longer term. And so, working with people who have experienced this themselves or who, on a day-to-day basis, are providing food to people who are experiencing this, we want to design a system that will work within our area, within Powys, to build that more equitable and dignified approach to food justice as well. So, I'm not sure; it doesn't perhaps quite answer it, but it gives an example of the sorts of things that I think would be helpful across the different areas.

Okay, Sioned?

Yes, thank you very much.

Fine. So, we think Chris Nottingham's mic is fixed now. I'll just pass over to Julie Morgan.

Diolch, and prynhawn da. Could you outline the main initiatives that your organisations are undertaking in order to increase access to nutritious and affordable food? And if you could explain why you have concentrated on that way of doing it.

Julie, can I suggest we go to Chris first?

Yes, I think he's keen to speak.

Thank you so much. Apologies for that. Yes, so one of our current projects where we're tackling that issue is our fruit and veg voucher scheme, which is a cash-version initiative funded by Welsh Government, and that's seen us work with—. One of our key partners is Flying Start, and we're talking so much with them about how the Healthy Start scheme isn't meeting the needs of their service users. So, we struck up a partnership with a local independent greengrocer to deliver fruit and veg vouchers to families who self-identify as being in food insecurity. So, we're targeting that sort of under-five bracket and we're giving people the opportunity to purchase fruit and vegetables on their high street, which is having that foundational economy impact, as well as giving people a bit more choice and freedom as to what to spend their money on. And it's these cash-first approaches that bring in access to a good diet; we've seen some really good feedback on our initial findings, which are exceeding the Healthy Start redemption rate target with our own local project, which is really satisfying. And then we're hearing of the benefits, whether that's giving people a little bit of extra breathing room, or enabling families to purchase fruit for their children, which is a real luxury for many. So, yes, that's been a way to increase access whilst also supporting vibrant high streets and creating the food system that we want to see on our doorstep.

And that's with one shop on the high street.

Yes. In Blaenau Gwent, we literally just have the one independent greengrocer. So, they've been able to help us by providing free delivery for the cost of the voucher to reach isolated communities, providing a discounted family-saver veg box, and people can ring up and get it delivered if they can't get to the shop. But we try and encourage that going to the shop to increase footfall and to have that more choice and experience of shopping locally.

Thank you. That sounds great. Hannah.

Thank you. We've been—as I mentioned earlier—running a programme called Bridging the Gap, looking at access opportunities, and we ran pilots across the UK—nine pilots—testing different approaches to achieving this, two of which were in Wales. And I'd first like to just build on a similar example to the one that Chris has just outlined, which is the Cardiff Planet Card. That was co-designed under the leadership of Food Cardiff, the food partnership in Cardiff, and that brought together people experiencing low incomes from diverse backgrounds along with farmers and retailers in one space to develop an idea as to what is an approach that would work to help people experiencing low incomes to get access to this food. They identified this idea of a voucher-based system, like a cash-first system, that enabled them to get out and shop, and, through various rounds of co-design, we came up with this £11 voucher that they could use in the Cardiff farmers' markets—so, the three Cardiff farmers' markets. That attracted enormous attention. We were always fully subscribed on this voucher programme, even though it was reasonably restrictive, in a way: people have to go to the farmers' market to be able to get their fruit and veg, but knowing that they had that cash in their hands. And I think that the wonderful and exciting findings that we've been getting from that are things around how people are changing their diets to a more seasonal diet, naturally rather than forcibly, by being given access to the marketplace and engaging directly. Unlike in a supermarket, where you don't talk to the retailer, you're engaging with the farmer, who is giving you that sense of what's possible—'What could I be doing with a celeriac that I wouldn't usually have thought to do?' And so that has really shifted how people using the voucher really engage with their food and seasonal produce and things like that, as well as making sure that they were getting enough fruit and veg.

Our other pilot in Wales is Welsh Veg in Schools—again, led by Food Sense Wales, so Pearl can add to this. Welsh Veg in Schools has been enormously successful and really gained momentum by working directly with local authorities—again, that co-design approach, working with growers, bringing growers together with the actual local authorities who were needing the food. So, there's a real understanding of what's required and growers being able to grow to that, with the facilitation of Food Sense Wales, and so now being able to deliver to these 15 local authorities, which is an enormous achievement, and seeing growers being able to scale up their practices to be able to deliver to that. Because you create the demand, then there are more people growing to that demand, which is what we need to see. We need to see a proliferation of horticulture in Wales in order to then balance it out, make it more accessible to everybody.

And are you able to avoid the issue of stigma with the vouchers?

Very much so. There's very much more a sense of that being a dignified approach. People have the choice. They don't have to go. And they're not turning up with vouchers in our case; they're able to just give their name to the retailer and the retailer is able to manage it like that. So, it's not such an overt and uncomfortable way of engaging. But I do think that it's an important consideration with anything that you roll out: how do you make it something that's comfortable for people.

Yes. Fine. Did you want to pick that up, Pearl?

Yes, I think picking up on two points—so, one on the stigma and dignity around food access and schemes—one of the reasons it's called Planet Card is because one of the participants in the co-design came up with that name, and the group said, 'We really wanted Planet Card, because it's something we can say we're a part of and we're not doing it because we're on a low income or because we're in food poverty; we're doing it because we're doing something good for the planet', and it was a badge of pride, rather than something against that. And then picking up on—. With both this and Welsh Veg in Schools, I think something that we do really well in Wales is investing in the social care of people—not in the social care sense, but in terms of things like the emergency food aid money that goes out, things like the universal access to infant free school meals, but I also think, 'What if that money was then also being used in terms of going into our local economies and into our environment?', which it is in some ways, but I think that there's a real opportunity to maximise the impact of money that's going through to things like universal free school meals.

I think Welsh Veg in Schools is really—I've written it down—the opportunity to build resilience for the future in terms of access to healthy and nutritious food. We've got such a great policy lever in terms of the market for free school meals. We've got all parts of the system engaged, from the public, private and voluntary sectors. At the moment, we're in a bit of a situation where we're going through the process of applying for the integrated natural resources scheme funding, which has been delayed, and that delay at the moment, in terms of knowing the outcome, is really threatening the progress that's been made in Welsh Veg in Schools. So, I think there are some prime opportunities at the moment that we should really grasp.

Thank you. Chloe.

Thank you. A bit similar to Chris, we've got a project that used some of the Welsh Government grant funding to support families. We've chosen to go through the nursery settings, so Flying Start settings, into areas of Powys, where the families who attend the settings—and all families that attend can access the programme—get a subsidised veg box. So, the veg boxes are a lower cost, and if they use their Healthy Start card, then it makes the box entirely free. In addition, we've then offered cooking sessions and opportunities to share meals as well, as part of the project.

One of the objectives was to link in with the work that the teaching health board have identified in Powys, through the whole-system approach to healthy weight, and working with those who have children aged between nought and five. It's a partnership project with the health board and the county council and the nurseries and the growers. Those local growers are building a relationship with the families who are attending the Flying Start settings. That's one of the projects that we've been working on, and it's been really interesting to work with families, identify what their priorities are and how they can access these things. Just to re-emphasise, I guess, that cash-first approach is definitely the way to get past stigma associated with any programmes that come in.

I also wanted to mention the Future Farms work around the county farms up in Newtown. A Powys county farm was converted into three smaller horticulture units, and they've been part of this programme up in Newtown, where they're offering these subsidised veg boxes. So, we're increasing the food production within Powys, and then we're enabling that food to go to those families who need it and who may not have accessed it traditionally themselves as well.

The other project, just in terms of which ones we thought would have the most impact, is the civil food resilience project as well, and building that first step on getting a strategy that covers a whole area, to identify what is our current level of resilience to food shocks and what do we need to do to try and build that up as well. That would probably be my other example.

All these sound like such fantastic projects, but how far are they spreading out over the whole of Wales? How much learning is going on? I know you mentioned earlier the strategic approach. Have you got any comments about that?

Sometimes it's easier for other people to say it, isn't it, but I think the work that Food Sense Wales do around bringing the food partnerships together, and the work Sustainable Food Places have done, is so valuable as an opportunity for us to share between food partnerships the learning, and also the challenges and opportunities that come up. So many times when we've had our communities of practice—I can see Chris nodding as well—someone says something, and then someone else would be like, 'That's a great idea. Can you send us over the forms? How did you do it? Can we have a chat about how to build this up?' That network opportunity has been incredibly valuable. I think every food partnership co-ordinator would say the same—that that is a great way of building a food system that has a place-based approach and recognises the differences that each of our areas within Wales has, but also allows for a broader, more impactful effect across the area, and that shared learning.

Thank you. Do you want to come in on that?

Just to add, I think the food partnerships obviously also provided a really great launch platform for Welsh Veg in Schools, and it's just a really great example of how the successful food partnerships were able to do that. But then, that they were able to then spread and help scale Welsh Veg in Schools really remarkably quickly alongside partnerships with wholesalers across Wales. So, we think, yes, making sure that you have a co-ordinating organisation like Food Sense Wales that's able to also then spread it through those food partnerships has been enormously impactful. That scaling is continuing, with more local authorities always interested in coming on board.

My last question: what are the gaps and what do you think the Welsh Government should concentrate on in terms of access to good, healthy food, available for everybody? Do you want to start off, Chris?

Thank you. I think what I was trying to say earlier as well is that the gaps for us are that we're so reliant on the third sector and volunteers for much of these good food initiatives that we're trying to support, to sustain them, to bring better access to food for people. It's working out how can we make that an essential infrastructure that is something that people can reliably have in their community where they live to support them.

Thank you. Has anyone else got a comment on that, the gaps?

I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. Obviously, there are still the gaps in supply, and we really need to make sure that we're on top of that. I think crucial to that building of the supply for, for example, Welsh Veg in Schools has been that relationship with Farming Connect horticulture. Having bodies like that in place that can support the growth of that supply on an ongoing basis will be vital.

Obviously, there's the middle, the supply chain, the infrastructure that supports that delivery. There's a gap for local infrastructure that was highlighted by that first question of the centralised infrastructure we've had to date. Welsh Veg in Schools have to put in place specific infrastructure in order to be able to increase supply locally. Those kinds of things are going to make an enormous difference on an ongoing basis.

At the access end, we need to support the initiatives that are getting off the ground, like Welsh Veg in Schools, not let them lose momentum. The Welsh Government foundational economy support for that in Welsh Veg in Schools has been integral and really important to making that get off the ground.

I think so often when I speak to people around food—. Obviously, any grant funding is really gratefully appreciated, but often it comes either with a very short deadline in terms of putting something forward, it has to be spent within a very specific period, or it's a little bit restrictive. I think a planned approach to that, perhaps with an overarching food policy, might be the answer, but it would help make it more impactful, rather than having to suddenly scramble around for, 'What can I spend this money on that I've been offered?' I think that would help with a lot of different aspects of the food system.

There were lots of issues arising from that, but we'll move on and maybe come back at the end. Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much to you all. Good afternoon. I just want to ask you two questions, if I may. I would like to concentrate on how you can help people who are in places or in positions of poverty. We know where the poorest regions are across Wales—Blaenau Gwent is one of those, and Rhyl is another. So, I just want to ask you, if I may, how you see the situation. Perhaps you have some examples of good practice in terms of working with families who are experiencing living in poverty, or who live in a poorer area like Blaenau Gwent. I would like to hear how we can reduce the need for emergency food aid provision, in particular, please. Could I ask Chris, if I could, to go first, because you have the experience of working in an area that, unfortunately, is the poorest place across Wales as a whole? Thank you.

It is a very challenging area to work in, and food poverty is our highest priority in everything that we do. The emergency food network is fantastic at what they do, and what we've tried to do is build that capacity at a local level. When I came in, a lot of food was given out on the tabletop. Over the years, we've seen that progress to fridges, meals, and then making that dignified access to reach more people. I think when people come for the emergency food parcel, it's almost too late. The crisis point has been breached.

We work, as Chloe mentioned, with the food ladders approach. We're trying to work out how do we insert ourselves to catch people before that point. We're doing front-line staff training, getting Citizens Advice to come in and do some community training, doing lots of digital exclusion projects, so making sure people have access to signposting, and then our front-line staff know exactly how and where to signpost people and what the most effective route is. We've released our 'Worrying about money?' leaflet, which is a digital and physical way for people, anyone concerned with money problems, to troubleshoot their way to finding help.

And again, we're promoting all these cooking skills, family workshops, cooking workshops, trying to bring self-reliance, and if there's a generational skills gap, trying to make sure that our communities are resilient enough. But as much work as we can do around improving cooking skills, et cetera, that won't make a difference for people who are really trapped in that low-paid, insecure work where housing costs, benefit freezes and an inadequate welfare system are leaving them really locked in their position, where they're unable to access the food that they need in their communities because of the constraints that they live in.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to respond to that question as well? In particular in respect of the situation with emergency food provision when people are in a crisis situation. Is there any good practice?

I can talk briefly, but then Chloe can probably say more. There's a local food partnership in every local authority area, and these food partnerships will focus on a range of different issues across the food system. But I think it's safe to say that all of them have a real focus or real understanding on the inequalities in our food system, and are proactively working to address access and affordability of food, particularly for those who are most in need or most vulnerable to it. I think that practice is quite widespread across the food partnerships in Wales. A lot of them are working on, similar to what Chris said, the emergency food aid networks and providing a co-ordinated role in terms of getting the different food providers across an area to be working together, to be working with the support services around them and making it a more connected approach and avoiding duplication and all that. But I know you'll be able to give the on-the-ground background.

Last year, I went out to visit three of the foodbanks in Powys and there were some really good examples. We spoke to the people who were using the foodbank and the managers of the foodbank and the volunteers there to try and identify what is it that people would like to see, any changes that they'd like to see. On the whole, people did feel like the foodbank was a safe place, they felt they were doing a really good job.

Some of the foodbanks were really well connected. One of them I went to in Llandrindod worked with 46 other partner organisations that they could refer people to and that they could have referrals in from. That ecosystem of support felt really valuable and really useful. Conversely, there were other foodbanks that felt really isolated and alone. They didn't have any of the support organisations coming in anymore, and so I think it makes it feel a bit like a postcode lottery. Where you live affects what support is available and how you can access it.

Building something that's—a bit like Chris mentioned—a bit safer, not reliant on those third sector organisations who are having to just pull together whatever they can in the moment, and it depends on that person's individual skill set, but everybody can access that same ecosystem of support that they have in Llandrindod, with all the different referral agencies, and having that central safe location to go into and know that you can find somebody to speak to about your problem, would be really valuable.

Thank you very much. So, one other thing that we're interested in is, well, first of all, what is the good practice? Chloe, you have touched on one element of that good practice, namely that everyone works together. But is it possible, in your view—and perhaps you've already answered this—to have food that is healthy in foodbanks? That is, to put those two elements together and to ensure that people who are living in poverty get healthy food, can start receiving healthy food or start learning about what healthy food is, and perhaps learning exactly how to cook, for example. Do you have examples of good practice in this area? We want to hear recommendations. We don't want to just hear the problems. We want to hear what you would like to see changing for those people living in poverty. Thank you very much. Chris, would you like to go first on this one, because once again you have some examples of good practice, I'm sure?

As a good practice example, we've got our health board dieticians who have sent around an approved list for your shelf-stable foodbank items, which has been really helpful for us to communicate that message of, 'These are the foods we want to be targeting if you haven't got refrigeration and a freezer.' On the fresh produce, that is one of the challenges that we face. We've got really good practice with EVI Pantry, where you can take as much fresh produce as you like, as well as their ticketed items, so that's removing any barriers, and then bringing in those cooking classes around that. I know you asked about good practice, but the challenge is that people are really stretched and time poor, so it can be difficult to join up those dots that we want to see.

Thank you very much. Does anyone else want to come in on anything that we can take away in this area?

Really quickly, because I appreciate I have spoken quite a lot. We found that, in Powys, offering cooking classes isn't what people want. We found that through our survey with our 'It starts with food' project, where we've offered cooking classes and shared meals. And the health board, with their engagement recently, found that when offering cooking classes, people said, 'I feel like I know how to cook, that's not my problem', but they were interested in specific targeted activities around food.

So, if you could say, for example, the work we did with the Flying Start setting through the nurseries, if it could be nutrition for toddlers and you could take your child along, it was a bit of a fun and relaxed session, that was definitely more taken on board, because it addressed multiple needs. So, it fed the child, it provided the skills, but also it was an activity after school, whereas otherwise they would have had to go home and find a way to entertain the child as well. It offered the opportunity to spend time as a family doing something that was enjoyable as well, whereas offering cooking classes without the family as a whole was not working so well.

Then there were also suggestions of things like a fakeaway cooking class, batch cooking or using leftovers, so targeted cooking sessions, rather than saying, 'Here's how to cook.' Because people really didn't feel like that was useful to them, because they felt they knew how to cook, but having targeted things that really spoke to the things that they wanted to do, like, 'Instead of a takeaway, you can do this, and it's cheaper and it's better for you.'

Okay. Do you think that's the way you got around the fact that six out of 10 households never cook from scratch? So, they may say that they know how to cook, but they're not actually cooking.

It's a really interesting question, and I think it's not just about skills. You're right that it might be perception based, but there's also the problem of time and headspace, because often people in crisis aren't thinking about, 'What am I going to make for tea?', they're getting to the point of, 'We need to eat now and there's no food in the cupboard.' There's a whole system of complicated things that seem to be feeding into this, and it's really difficult to navigate and find a simple solution and a recommendation, which is why the systems work is so valuable. So, I think it's trying to make sure that it's not targeted and saying, 'You don't know how to cook, so we're going to teach you'; it's more of a, 'Come and do this activity where you can have some food, your child can do something fun and interesting and you can all learn this together.' That's a more positive way.

Thank you. Jane, I think we need to move on.

Thank you very much. I've finished, thank you. I don't want to ask my final question.

Okay. Can I call Altaf Hussain?

Thank you very much, Chair. This is regarding producing and providing healthy, nutritious and affordable food. There were a few questions in the previous questions that were asked about cost-effectiveness and labelling and shelf life, and to whom these products are being supplied. When you visit the high street, the vegetables cost much more than what you have in big stores. It is hard to know the shelf life as well, because they are not well labelled.

Now, let me come to my questions. How are your organisations supporting local growing initiatives, and efforts to increase the local food supply? What further actions are required by the Welsh Government and other organisations to support similar initiatives? Open question.

Okay. So, Hannah, you were mentioning earlier about veg in schools, but it's tiny, the amount that's being grown, compared with what's needed. Eleven tons of carrots won't feed the children at all of our primary schools. So, how are we going to do this, to actually resolve this in a much more urgent way?

Yes, well, what we always hear from our growers across the different pilots that we have been working on is, 'We need to know that there is demand, and then we'll grow to the demand.' So, knowing that there is that demand for those veg throughout the schools in Wales would make an enormous difference to seeing an increase in supply. What we are seeing then, as a result of that, is that there is more available for the open market as well. So, as soon as you have got more growers growing for that supply, then you will have more veg going into the system more broadly.

So, just to reiterate that point: the support that has been available through Welsh Veg in Schools for those growers to increase their land—. For example, knowing that they have got that demand, they have been able to buy more land to then produce more food, to then service the demand that is there. Similarly, where they have needed it, there has been support through the Welsh Veg in Schools programme for them to buy things like polytunnels, which really help them to increase that. They know that they can pay those grants back, or they know that they will be able to pay a loan back, because they have that security in that demand. So, I think that having that in place, and writing it into legislation that there will be that demand on an ongoing basis, means that you will see those growers entering into that. So, that's one of the key things, I'd say.

And then, obviously, knowing that you've got something like Farming Connect horticulture, which we do not have in England, and therefore growers really don't have that support to move—. It's been a really vital support here in Wales, and we've seen that have a huge impact in terms of more growers going into it, increasing. Also, the conversion to organic has been really fantastic to see through this process. So, I would say that making sure that those kinds of support mechanisms for growers remain, as we also support that kind of demand.

Can I come in as well? Thank you. So, a couple of points from me. So, one point on the cost difference of locally produced and potentially organic veg or veg that's on the high street, compared to supermarkets, for example, is that we know that there can be very much that cost difference.

First, I guess, the cost of eating a healthy diet for people is modelled at three times more expensive than the cost of eating an unhealthy diet, calorie for calorie. So, from a health perspective, eating vegetables is already kind of cost prohibitive to a lot of people. And then, to go even further and eat food that's good for climate and biodiversity, potentially has another cost as well.

But we also know that a lot of our fruit and veg is imported, and a lot of that is from water-scarce countries and countries at risk of climate impact. So, we can't rely on that lower cost for the future. That gap might close. So, one of the things that we're doing at the moment is modelling what the impact of investing in our horticulture sector in Wales would be, in terms of that long-term resilience. So, if we put the investment in, in terms of things like the processing and the infrastructure that Hannah mentioned, then, hopefully, we can reduce that cost premium and then get the benefits from it as well, and also the really important thing of that resilience for the future, if food from other countries does get even more expensive, for example.

A small point I was going to mention just on the labelling was that the Planet Card pilot, where people were buying their fruit and veg from the farmer's markets, one of the early responses we've had is that people found that the food lasted a lot longer. And there were very positive responses in terms of the actual unpackaged, unlabelled food in that, actually, people were finding that it was lasting longer than their supermarket produce. So, that was a positive impact of it.

Altaf.

Yes. I'll come to my last question, really, because we did touch on the horticulture. What further assistance could the Welsh Government provide to help organisations working in this area to make the necessary investment, as you pointed out about the horticulture? And my next question is: what steps should the Welsh Government and public bodies take to ensure that the food served by the public sector increases access to locally produced, healthy, nutritious and affordable food?

Patients, pupils, and prisoners.

Yes.

Perhaps if I start, and just give—I'll be very quick—an overview of a couple of the things that Food Policy Alliance Cymru, which we're the secretariat of, are calling for. So, they're calling for putting food at the heart of the next Welsh Government, and there are four areas within this: so, one is around developing a comprehensive food resilience plan, which I touched on earlier; another is ensuring every child leaves school food literate; the third is building community food wealth; and fourth is creating an ambitious growth plan for horticulture. So, within these are some specific recommendations of those exact steps. One I can mention now, for example, is around potentially creating a—sorry, if I can find the notes—a community wealth infrastructure fund for food, so a fund that could be put together for the required investment in food. Another would be around creating an ambitious horticulture plan with targets in it as well.

Okay. Hannah.

Yes, sorry. I think I'm just building a little bit on what Pearl was saying. From across our pilots, we had a similar raft of measures that we were wanting to see put in place across the UK, but specific to Wales as well, that they mirrored across. And I think it's making sure that we're fixing the various different elements in the system and taking a systems-wide approach, so the supply, the middle and the access. But that means doing those things that I said about: putting the right standards in place, setting the expectation, knowing that the demand is going be there, alongside also making sure that that horticulture support is there. And then, in the middle of that, that you're also supporting putting the infrastructure in place, as we can't look at either end of it on its own, and that's things like the horticulture strategy.

I'd just like to say that one of the things that has been really impressive here in Wales has been that there has been this concerted investment in Welsh Veg in Schools, there's been Farming Connect horticulture and some development grants, and that has seen an increase in land area that we have not seen across the UK in general, so just to applaud that and say, 'We need to not lose momentum.' We've got some fantastic initiatives in place and it would be a real tragedy to see Welsh Veg in Schools fall off because of a lack of funding, when we're seeing land being converted, we're seeing more farmers going into this space. Let's keep that momentum up and build on it, so let's not lose the opportunity that's in front of us.

Very good. We're running out of time, so I just want to rattle through a few things. At the beginning, you mentioned the possibility of subsidising good food against the rubbish that people are invited to buy, which is of very little nutritional value. I wondered what conversation your partnership has had with the UK Government about precisely that, i.e. extending the sugar tax not just to milk drinks, but to all ultra-processed foods, so that we can then subsidise fresh, sustainable food.

Is that one you could take?

Yes. My organisation, Sustain, does campaign on the sugar tax. I think, broadly speaking, we're trying to push for that to be in place, but then, in the long term, looking at a raft of different ways in which that could support a future better food system and encouraging the Government to look at these kinds of interventions, including the wider cash-first interventions that we've been talking about through the session.

Okay. And just picking up on the Planet Card that we talked about earlier, are you still doing that, or is it a pilot that's now being reflected on before you relaunch it?

Exactly that, yes. It was a pilot. It ran for a year with 100 participants, and now we're taking a step back and looking at what the learnings are and how we might scale that. But the beauty of this, having been a UK-wide project that has looked at different pilots, is that we can take the different learnings from the different places now and try to make sure that we're doing this in a way that, if we were to roll it out further, is most likely to be the most successful for the most people. So, we're just going through that process at the moment with Food Cardiff.

Because the question I'll want answered in your evaluation is: how successful was it really in reaching those who are living in genuine food poverty? None of the three farmers markets in Cardiff are in areas of the highest deprivation, so how do you know that the people who got the vouchers are the people who actually needed that food most?

We did extensive surveying with the university of Cardiff on the participants, and so the participants shared their levels of food security. So, we have data on that, which I could send through to you so that you have some specific—

We'd be very interested. Again, we're going to need to turn this around quite quickly, so whether or not it will be available in the time—. But, clearly, there are other areas, like Blaenau Gwent, which is lucky to have an independent greengrocer still. There are other places, like Treorchy, where there's a great farm shop for the meat and the dairy, but the vegetables are a disaster zone. They're gas-ripened—you know, all that sort of artificial stuff that doesn't last. Absolutely.

I think that's a really good example of why we need to invest in the wider system as well, because, otherwise, it will then just become a postcode lottery and areas that happen to have good infrastructure will benefit more.

Sure. Okay. So, in terms of what you want the next Government to do, are you looking for a Minister for food, or what are your proposals? Here's your shopping—. Very briefly, just tell us what is it you want from the next Government.

I think the food resilience plan or food strategy would be the thing that we want. A Minister for food could be one solution for implementing that, but—

Tell us what you mean by this food resilience plan.

A clear vision for what we want for food in Government with specific outcomes, plans, targets and indicators to achieve those.

To benefit who?

To benefit everyone in Wales, and the climate and every outcome we want for food.

Well, people with large amounts of income have no problem feeding themselves well.

Exactly. So, it wouldn't be successful if it only reached those people; it needs to reach everyone.

Okay. Has anybody else got any starters for 10? Chris.

Yes. Our most deprived communities are being targeted with hot food takeaways. So, in Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr, we have a hot food takeaway density well in excess of the national average and, in turn, we fall well below the national average for what classifies as a healthy weight. Yet, fast-food outlets seem to fly through the planning process with little objection. So, yes, a planning system that supports a whole-system approach to a healthy food environment and supports the Marmot principles that we say we follow.

Thank you. We have run out of time, but if there's anything you want to submit in written evidence, please feel free to do so. We thank you very much indeed for your participation. We'll send you a transcript of what you've said and it'll stand as the record unless you correct it if we've misheard you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

Thanks, all of you. We'll now take a short break while we prepare for the next panel, which starts at a quarter to on the dot.

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee, and we are now going to move to our second panel of experts into current access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food. So, the Food Standards Agency's latest survey shows that one in five are food insecure, and, in deprived areas, guess what, it's at least one in three, if not higher. So, what are the main barriers, in your experience, to individuals and households in terms of being able to access healthy food? If you could just indicate and then introduce yourselves when you first speak, who wants to go first?

I'm happy to.

Katie, I'm very pleased to welcome you, from the Trussell Trust.

Absolutely, yes. Thank you for having me. At Trussell, we do a huge amount of research into what's driving people to go without food. We know that, in Wales, the recent stat from our 'Hunger in Wales' report found that 660,000 adults in Wales were going without food because of a lack of income. So that, in some way, means skipping meals, reducing portion sizes, just going without for longer periods.

The drivers of foodbank need, through our research and through our community of foodbanks across Wales, are also really clear to us. The most immediate driver is to do with a lack of income, and the most immediate driver of a lack of income or low income is a lack of social security. So, primarily, we're talking about universal credit there, but work too. We're increasingly finding that work isn't paying, it isn't providing a route out of going without the essentials, including food. Experiencing life-altering changes, for example, becoming homeless, a relationship breakdown, facing a bereavement, all of these shock factors can impact a person's need to go to a foodbank. But we're quite clear that income is the primary driver of people having to go without food, which sees people through the doors of our community of foodbanks.

Okay. Thank you. To what extent does the Welsh Government's approach to food policy start to address these issues? Who'd like to go first? Simon Wright of Pobl y Gegin—Cegin y Bobl, I'm so sorry—and Wright's Food Emporium.

Thank you. First of all, I'd just add to what Katie was saying about barriers. It's also barriers to healthy food that's important, because it's a question of, obviously, diet inequality equals health inequality. But I'd agree with those barriers, and I'd add that then you've got access to healthy food, which is partially at least to do with income, but also to do with actual food deserts, being able to actually get hold of that food in an easy and affordable manner.

I think, in terms of what the Welsh Government is doing, we've seen some really ambitious policy initiatives, particularly in relation to school food, universal free school meals in primary, Welsh Veg in Schools. Those things are all welcome, but I think what's lacking is a joined-up and comprehensive approach that addresses the other issues that pertain to that. So, if you take school food, for instance, and universal free school meals, it's a great idea, it's fantastic that we're doing it and have been ahead of the game in doing it, but then the question is what do those school meals look like, how are they being delivered, and what do they mean for the health and the future food culture of those individuals that are having them, and I think the questions around that are enormous and do undermine the overall success or the potential success of universal free school meals.

And I think similarly in terms of Welsh Veg in Schools, which is a brilliant initiative and has been hugely successful in the relatively small way in which it's tried, but we need a comprehensive approach to this. The issue isn't going away and, in fact, it's becoming more apparent on a daily basis—one only has to turn on the news to know that—and I think we have the opportunity in Wales to stitch these things together properly in a way that will put us way ahead of the game. The advantages there will be not just for our young people, for the citizens of the future, but also there are economic and entrepreneurial possibilities around that that we could see being realised in our communities, because the whole world needs this solution, the whole of the UK needs it, and it's not there largely at the moment.

Okay. Let's turn to Janet Hayward. You're not only the founder of Big Bocs Bwyd, but you're also the headteacher of a primary school, so I wondered if you could tell us what your experience is of the challenge we face in ensuring that every family gets healthy, nutritious, affordable food.

Okay. So, to pick up on some of the points that have already been made by Katie and Simon, I think, absolutely, we've got the whole challenge around the cost of living at the moment, and we're seeing that with our families in abundance. And I suppose, going back five years or so, when Big Bocs Bwyd began, it was about getting as much food as we possibly could out to families, because we could see that cost-of-living crisis really come in. But when Simon talks about diet inequality equalling health inequality, we have far more understanding around that now. So, the fact that, between Cadoxton and Cowbridge, there is a 20-year difference in healthy life expectancy is just huge, and we know that's largely because of the food that our children are eating. We have far more understanding now of the danger of ultra-processed food and what that can do to our children cognitively. So, as well as not having enough food, it's about having the right food. When Simon talks about food deserts, we know that the good, healthy fruit and veg isn't always accessible when there's only a small village shop close by that has an abundance of ultra-processed stuff. And we know that our children, even though they're all entitled to a healthy free school meal, a lot are still turning up with their ultra-processed bags of absolute rubbish to eat in the day. So, there's a huge challenge for Big Bocs Bwyd in terms of providing the good food, but also providing the education that goes with it as well.

I suppose I've been privy to some fantastic professional learning around ultra-processed food and, therefore, the impact that that needs to have on a whole-school approach to food. But not all heads and school leaders have had that, and I think there's something huge in that in terms of the whole-school approach. And we do have that, and it is ingrained in our school curriculum, but it needs to go further. There is definitely an inconsistency in what's happening with free school meals, with the universal free school meal offer, and Simon picked up on that, but the other area of policy that Big Bocs Bwyd really taps into as well is community-focused schools. Schools aren't everything, are they, but they are in every community in Wales and they do reach out into their communities, and if we are only in schools just learning now about the importance of good food and the importance of cooking your own food, then a lot of our parents and people in our community certainly don't have that. So, the support around cooking good food is a really important thing.

FareShare have been a real partner to Big Bocs Bwyd from the beginning, and a real driver for Big Bocs Bwyd at the start of the journey was around preventing food waste, but that has changed over time again. The food that arrives into schools is different from that into Big Bocs Bwyd because of the way that the food comes in; that's natural. But what we're finding in some is that the food that's coming in is actually far less the kind of 'real goodies', as perhaps we'd have seen them in the past, some of the microwavable meals and that kind of thing. We're getting far more in the way of fruit and vegetables, but then how do we make sure that we're able to cook with those things, that we're providing the kind of mindset, really, with our children in school, but then with our parents as they go home? So, a lot of the Big Bocs Bwyds are making the 'go fresh' boxes and kits for children to take home. So, they practise cooking in school, but then take those ingredients home with them. And I know that Robbie is here from Can Cook. Are you from Can Cook, Robbie?

Well Fed.

Well Fed, that's what I'm looking for. And that is a similar thing. So, Big Bocs Bwyd is now morphing in different ways and working with different partners, but certainly changing over time.

Okay. Before I move to Robbie Davison, could you just tell us in numbers how many of your families you've been able to encourage to cook from scratch?

Here in Cadoxton?

Yes.

I would say that, if you went back five years ago, it would be very few that we knew about, but through our Soup and Song programme, through all sorts of different programmes we've got going on, I know that we've impacted on at least 100 families that we've seen a real change in and that we have that case study data around and that are cooking differently at home.

Excellent. We'd be very interested in hearing about that. So, Robbie Davison, what are the key challenges that Well Fed faces to increase access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food and tackle food poverty meaningfully?

I'd just like to echo pretty much what has been said. Let me show you a picture. We've just been talking about food and diet. There's the amount of fibre a child needs to eat every single day if they are to eat healthier. That's every single day. Now, it's incumbent on us all here who are witnesses to try to get that into a child's digestive system, because for every day we're not doing that, the child is starting to struggle from a health perspective. Food aid has become a lot more powerful over the last 14, 15 years, whenever your start date is, but food aid is in a position right now where it can change and it can—together, by the way; there are one, two, three, four, five, five of us all involved in food aid. If we choose to work together—. We are a manufacturer of meals—fresh, UPF-free meals, interestingly. Janet's just been talking, and we're the only UPF-free meal provider anywhere in the UK, and we sit in Wales. We've got a 60,000-meal capacity in our kitchens. Now, interestingly—Sarah and I have just been talking—we're about to form a partnership with FareShare in Manchester. Taking their surplus to us, we produce thousands of meals—fresh meals, meals we would all love to eat, by the way, every one of us—and then we're getting those meals back out across a food-aid chain.

And the reason I think this matters—and I know we're pushed on time—but here's a thought for you to consider: if people eat well, they are not in food poverty. So, if you give people access to good food that they choose to eat for themselves, they are not in food poverty. They may well still be in poverty, but we should choose—and Welsh Government have the power to drive this, by the way—we should choose for people not to be in food poverty. By the way, the power is around this table. It can happen in Wales.

Thank you. I call in Jane Dodds.

I just wanted to add—

If you just want to add something.

I'm Sarah from FareShare Cymru, which has been mentioned a couple of times.

Sorry; I beg your pardon. Sarah Germain.

I just wanted to build on a couple of things that have already been said. So, we work with something like 256 community organisations across Wales. We work with a sister organisation to deliver in north Wales, and there is an increase in demand for what we do, and a lot of those people are in employment as well, our members tell us.

One of the things I did want to flag was that 47 per cent of the food that we gave out last year was fruit and veg, which links in to what Janet was saying about the increase in fruit and veg. There are lots of different reasons for that. The surplus food landscape has changed a little bit, and that creates its own issues, because it's food that's slightly harder to use. We get a lot of one thing at a time, and sometimes it's food that people haven't seen before. So, we've been doing a lot of different things to increase the amount of food that our community food members are able to take, which they can then hand on to the people within their communities. So, we've been trialling pop-up kitchens, so that people can show people how to use the fruit and veg we've got. So, we had celeriac in the other week, and some people have never seen a celeriac, but they can show them how to use it. We've been working with our members really, really hard over the last couple of years to increase the amount of fruit and veg that they can take, and what they can do with that. We're also looking at cooking training and getting a chef on board, so that we can do more of that kind of thing as well.

Other things we've been doing are around—. We've also got some zero-waste food dispensers, so that that can be handed out as well, so that you can, again, get those different types of fruit and veg out to people. So, I just wanted to flag, really, the point that a lot of our food is good food, and that's not what people expect us to say a lot of the time.

Well, that's amazing. It's certainly a big turnaround from where I was told I could not donate good fresh food to a foodbank. So, that's fantastic news.

Just to build on that comment, I guess, most of our members aren't foodbanks; they're hostels, they're community centres, they're all sorts of different organisations as well.

Very good. Can I call in Jane Dodds?

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. I know that time is short, so I just want to ask you about how we ensure that people who are living in poverty can access healthy food, in your experience, please. Thank you. I don't know who would like to go first on that. Perhaps Janet, online, would like to go first.

Diolch, Jane. I suppose the point that I'd like to make about Big Bocs Bwyd is that we say that it's a hand up not a hand out, so it's absolutely not a foodbank. People can pay as they feel, so they can make a contribution as well. It's trying to make food accessible, healthy, but have a bit of an aspirational feel to it as well, because that is very important. Creating a community around food is very important. The zero-waste aspect is really important for us in Big Bocs Bwyd as well. We have those zero-waste elements to the shop. We've managed to work in partnership with Castell Howell as well to supply those really well, but that means you can make a really delicious soup if you've got your lentils and accessibility to that kind of thing. So, it's a combination, I guess, of so many different things, and that's what Big Bocs Bwyd and so many of these other organisations, I suppose, are trying to do is make a solution that is about something that is a bit aspirational, and not trying to do to people.

Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thank you very much. I'll go to—. I think, Jane, both Simon and Robbie have indicated, and Katie. So, good luck, Jane. Simon, do you want to start?

Yes. Look, I think one of the things we need to recognise is that the context to all this is really important in terms of the challenges to the global food system, and how fast that is moving. Resilience is really key, and food security is probably, in many ways, the most pressing issue that we face, and our patron at Cegin y Bobl is Professor Tim Lang, who's one of the leading experts in the UK on that subject.

But the reality of it is that as we're seeing more information come out about the impact of UPFs, none of which we should be surprised at, and as we see it mounting, there's increasing concern amongst the public about what that's doing to their health. We already talk about diet inequality and food inequality, and all I'm saying here is that the issue that Jane has raised becomes even more important, because you're basically starting to say, 'Okay, those people who can opt out of the UPF system are starting to do that.' You've seen Marks and Spencer maybe recently advertising that their meal deals are based on non-UPF foods, et cetera, whilst other people are going to be left behind on the wrong side of this again.

So, just to reiterate the importance of this, but the solutions are linked to a number of things. As Janet has outlined, some of it's about—and I don't want to call it 'education' either—but some of it's about support, giving people the resilience and helping them to find their own solutions in terms of the ability to cook, choose and source their food and, indeed, to grow it. Other solutions are around what we need to do with the rural economy—in fact, not just the rural economy, the urban economy too—in terms of the opportunities for food production.

Those are growing because of the instability of the global food system. We can no longer rely on many of the basics of cheap food, including vegetables. So, if you take the price of organic vegetables in west Wales, for instance—of which there are more and more being produced, but nothing like what we need—they have come down relative to the cost of imported goods. So, you can quite often come to—and I have a retail element to my business—you can quite often come to a place like ours, buy local organic tomatoes in the summer cheaper than the cheapest tomatoes in Tesco. So, we need to be aware that this is a shifting picture and we need to plan for the future and for resilience, and put the basic fundamentals in place.

Just to end there, I think what we are saying here is that we need a co-ordinated food policy. Now, I'm not one who wants to go back to Peter Fox's Food (Wales) Bill, because I thought it was brilliant, I worked really hard on it, others did as well, and we should have got it through. We haven't got time for that now. So, we need to build things and, in my view, what we should do is put school food at the centre of the system and build everything around that. Janet made a really good point: schools are often one of the few things left in the community where people come together. If fresh food is coming into the school, that's a damn good start on getting fresh food into the community.

Thank you very much. I would like to hear, please, responses—. Sorry. I would like to hear responses to the question: how can we have healthy food made available to people in poverty? So, any ideas or experiences that you have that would respond to that question, please. Thank you.

Robbie Davison first.

Do you know what? I think we have the solution already, to be honest. I'll just refer to what Simon said, and I'll give you an answer directly in a second. I just wanted to include something that Simon has just said. We're in a changing world and we are in a changing food world, interestingly. We have tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of surplus fresh food—tonnes of it—very single week being distributed. FareShare can tell you that tale much better than me. Interestingly, it's what we do with that surplus food to make sure it ends up as meals on a plate for people. Now, what we’ve been working on for years is to make sure that surplus food can be converted into meals to give people the choice, because choice is a really important thing here. People who are struggling should have the same choice as everybody around this table.

Now, what I think—and obviously I’m going to say this, because I’m sitting here and this is what we work on—is if you design a service that is predicated on the person eating the food and not the supply chain itself, what you get is a much better service for the person eating the food. Now, where we are at right now, because food aid has moved on and we all have a lot more experience of dealing with it, I'll be really honest with you, we have a solution right now.

And one last thought on this, and it's about charity. We must move people away from charity and give them a chance to support themselves. Everybody has money at some point, but unless they can spend money on things that are affordable that they would choose for themselves, it's always going to be really difficult, and we will not move on as a society. It's a big, important factor.

Okay. Solutions? Sarah, then Katie.

Just quickly, just a couple of things. I think we can't ignore the fact that we should be going down a cash-first approach in all of this, really, and that should be the first thing. People should be able to buy food and have enough money to do so.

The other thing I just wanted to touch on, and I'll be really quick, is that we work with community organisations that are based in their communities, and the solutions that they build are the solutions that their community want, and so I think that's a really strong bit of work, working with those communities and allowing them to find the solutions. There are so many different solutions within that. There are community meals, there are pantries, there are community cooking classes, all sorts of different solutions in that. So, I won't take loads of time on that, but yes.

Katie.

Thank you, yes. For me, it's clarity over what we're trying to do here. For me, if we're tackling the reasons why people are needing to go to a foodbank, it's really clear to me that we need to increase incomes, and there are plenty of ways we can do that, through access to advice, increasing social security, work, looking at housing costs et cetera, and I guess the clarity too that foodbanks, Trussell foodbanks, foodbanks in general, are meant for emergencies. They are emergency food, and they are very clearly, because of the different drivers forcing people there, not because of a lack of food in the community—it's because people aren't able, because they don't have enough in their pocket at that moment, to choose where they are going to buy food, and you can't cook yourself out of poverty if you don't have enough to put the electricity on, you don't have anywhere to store your food, you don't have enough money to buy food in the first place. So, I—

We need to focus on food. We're not going to fix the rent controls that we may or may not need, or the benefits system, or the private rented housing, that we haven't got enough social housing. We need to focus on food—here, you know. Okay.

I'll carry on if that's okay with you, and perhaps we'll come back to Janet when I ask the next question, if that's okay, Janet. I would just like to ask you, if I may, also thinking of the poorest people across Wales, those people who don't own fridges, who don't have space to cook and so on: what are the biggest barriers in your view, or in your experience, for them, and how could the Government or other bodies ensure that people living in poverty have access to food? So, what are the biggest barriers, in your experience or in your view? And I'll start with Janet, because she's been waiting to come in. Janet.

Okay. So, just one point that I would like to make is that we do have families who are living in food poverty, but sometimes that can mean a Domino's pizza nearly every night, and we know that because—. It's so good, isn't it, to go out and do your big shop and have all of your store-cupboard basics so that you can make beautiful food, but, if you are living in poverty and you don't have the fridge, and you don't have the wherewithal to be able to cook, then it means it can be costing so much more, and there's an education piece to that. So, I think there's a poverty of expectation sometimes as well, and that inability to think ahead because of so many different barriers in the way.

What I would say is the solution to that is certainly, as has just been mentioned, in our communities, and for schools it is through something like Big Bocs Bwyd. But communities do have solutions within to support one another. So, I think that is a very important part of this jigsaw.

Thank you very much. And any other barriers, any other gaps do you think, in your view or in your experience? It's important for us to hear about your experience.

Can I—? It really is just—. For me, food poverty, or people being hungry, it's about meals. It's access to meals at all times. It sounds like a really simplistic message, and it sounds like it's something that's really easy to do, but it's access to meals, because the moment somebody eats well they are no longer hungry. It's a really important fact. There are a lot of great services that are offered in and around food aid, and they all have a part to play, but if we're not feeding people—. We all eat meals every single day, three times a day, and we look forward to doing that. So, that's the service that we need to provide. We need to provide meals for everybody and give access to meals for everyone.

And could I ask you please, just to follow up on that—? Sorry, I just want to make sure you all have the headsets on. Could I ask you, just to follow up on that, what could the Government here in Wales do to ensure that that does happen? That's what we want to hear from you on. Thank you.

Okay. Very briefly, because I need to move on and call the next person.

I can speak again, not in necessarily a food space, but, if we're trying to make sure that people aren't going without food, there's plenty that Welsh Government could do in terms of thinking about advice provision within the community, making sure that people are accessing advice in the places where they really are. Our financial inclusion services within foodbanks show that building a relationship with someone, building trust, being in a place where people are, i.e. a foodbank setting or another community setting, can make huge strides in helping maximise people's incomes—

Okay. But we are doing that. The 'Claim what's yours' campaign is live at the moment. There's automatic—

But we're still seeing huge levels of foodbank need.

—registration. I think we're looking for—

Food solutions.

Quickly, Sarah, and then I'm going to call Sioned Williams.

I was just going to say that a lot of the barriers we're seeing aren't necessarily people, but they're the barriers to the community organisations doing more, and the barriers to us getting more food out to them. And that's a lot about resources and funding and the longevity of funding and putting the support in place for those organisations. If there was that there, then they could do more.

Okay, we'll probably come back to that in later questions. Sioned Williams.

Thank you. I just wanted to return to those questions as to how the Welsh Government can support this provision, particularly emergency food aid. Do you think that the balance, in terms of the support provided by Welsh Government to emergency food aid provision and also the longer term preventative solutions to tackle the root causes of food poverty, is that balance there, or would you like to see certain changes in terms of that balance?

Simon is indicating.

Yes. No, I don't think the balance is right, and I think the two things need to go hand in hand, so the short-term stuff that we do has to inform the longer term stuff and contribute to that. We're not doing enough in that respect.

We also need to look at what we're doing and really look at its impact. Going back to free school meals—and, look, school meals are central to this and we know why; we don't have to go through why that's so important. But the reality of it is that, from the work that we do in schools, and we've probably taught about 1,000 kids to cook on six-week courses in the last two years, that means we're in a lot of schools; we see a lot of school lunches. We also did the tender for the future generations menu in Carmarthenshire—so, we were working on what would work as far as new dishes are concerned and how we could change that. Look, I'm going be honest about this—what we see in school kitchens is terribly inefficient. The whole system needs revising. The way that we deliver school food at the moment is that we, largely, employ people on minimum wage, there's no training, the sickness and absenteeism rates across Wales go up to 25 per cent—at any one time, there can be 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the workforce not available—and, in fact, vacant jobs. And we're doing this completely wrong. And one of the things that we do—and, again, I'm not here to talk about what we do, but it does inform this—is—. Our principle is that we use people, chefs, cooks, from independent hospitality to deliver these skills. So, these people have been doing it for years, for numbers of people, so they know how to run kitchens. And what we see at the moment is gross inefficiency in those kitchens, terrible jobs that are really unrewarding, especially when up to 70 per cent of the food is coming back uneaten.

If we don't address those central issues—and this probably is the single most central issue because of the level of Government spending that goes towards this—then we're hiding from the reality of it. And I feel like we are. I've been in a lot of meetings with Jenny and cross-party groups, but the honest truth is that we have to change the system. I would go so far—and this is an unpopular view in the sort of lobbying position that I come from—that I would not be putting more money into school food until we sort the system out. The 20p that's just been announced, I've spoken to senior people in local authorities about where that money will go. The money will go to pay off debt, and, probably, it will mean increased prices from suppliers. This is not where the problem is. We can probably do it with the same amount of spending very efficiently, with multiple benefits in the community. In other words, we could be spending more locally, better jobs, probably for slightly fewer people, but those people can go and do other jobs within the local authority. Sorry, I just felt the need to get that in.

Thank you. It's true, isn't it, that the money that's being spent on free school meals is a substantial amount. We heard in our previous session that it is a very powerful lever that Government has in terms of spending to improve food education, but also nutrition for young people. So, what you're saying, if I've understood you correctly, is that we need a review of how all of the elements dovetail in order to operate within the boundaries of those policies.

Yes, we do. I mean, actually, it shouldn't take very long, to be honest. And again, we've got to be careful here, because this is an urgent situation. And as Robbie was saying, as we've said earlier, the landscape is shifting all the time.

I'd go further than this, and I'd say that, if we were to really take this seriously and get this right and do the right training, we could actually make—these could have financial benefits for Wales, not just in terms of what we save on the NHS, not just in terms of the additional educational benefits, which we've not even touched on, the disruption that school meals cause at the moment—ask Janet and ask what some of her other headteachers will tell you about the disruption to the school day and kids' behaviour et cetera. The benefits could be huge. And if we would set the way, we would be putting the skills, the training and the infrastructure in place that could be saleable all over the UK and across the world.

Well, could I ask Janet, then, to give her views on what we've just heard from Simon, as a school head?

Her views are better than mine.

Okay. Absolutely, what Simon has said there is absolutely spot on. We have discussed it before, Simon and I. The reality is that every child in a primary school in Wales is entitled to a free school meal now. That's been rolled out across all of the different local authorities. It looks different in each local authority. We know that schools in Wales don't have enough money, and the impact of so many societal, outside factors now coming into schools is huge. We know that children need to have the right food, it's really important, but what's going on in our school kitchens isn't entirely fit for purpose. So, a review into what's going on in school kitchens, I think, would be very timely. I think it would be important to look at the conditions for staff, to look at the food that's being provided, but also the whole culture around food.

So, one of the things that we do at Cadoxton is we make sure that every child has half an hour to sit and eat food, that they sit with school staff, that they have it modelled for them that this is how we sit and eat, because a lot of our families don't do that at home, everything's eaten on the go or on the lap in front of screens. So, to look at where things are going well now and how we can spread that out is really important. And I think the question that could be asked is: are universal free school meals the right way for us to be going as a country when we can't afford everything that we need? I know that's a political question and a bigger question, but I think it's the right time to be asking these questions now, when we are at such a crossroads in our schools, with school funding and the challenges being as they are.

Sioned, Robbie Davison has indicated, and so has Julie Morgan, so—

To add to what Simon and Janet have just said, I'll go one step further. I think the funding that Welsh Government put into school food now is enough to fund whole-school approaches to make sure that there is no hunger for any child in any school. And this is a subject I know really, really well. We have spent years looking at this. So, well done, Welsh Government, because I do think the universal approach is important, but please make sure that you maximise the potential of that money going into schools. Seventy-five per cent of everything eaten in schools in Wales is ultra-processed. So, you're starting from there, but you can fund everything out of it. Simon's work could be funded out of this. It's a really important fact that there's a lot of money going into schools right now.

Okay. Julie Morgan.

This is just a matter of inquiring about the fact, I think, Simon, that you said that 70 per cent went to waste. Is that an accredited figure, that 70 per cent goes to waste?

It's not an accredited figure, no, and actually, there's work going on in Carmarthenshire to get an accurate figure on that. Look, that's in some schools, and it is based on what we—

Not overall.

No, not overall. But the waste levels are generally shocking, and I would say that 50 per cent is a regular occurrence. It's really interesting in schools, because where you've got—. In some schools, we've got school cooks that have been around 30 or 40 years. Again, I'll be honest with you, they don't necessarily obey the structures that are put in place by catering managers and the sort of top-down nutritional approach that we have in Wales. They use common sense, they often use their own recipes, and that's where we see the best food, by a distance.

One of the problems we've got here is the approach to it. I think it does need to be said, because you've got the moment the review is going to be published into what the new nutritional standards will be—those from 2013 have been updated. The reality is that that system does not work. You've wasted the money by actually doing that review, because what appears on the plate bears no relation to what the standards say. The standards are applied through software, where you put recipes in one end, and they say at the other end, 'Do these recipes comply or not?' That doesn't guarantee what appears on the plate, because there's no audit, but also, and Robbie and I were discussing this earlier, there is no point in putting things on the plate that are inedible. So, if you serve it, you say, 'We put the broccoli on the plate, therefore the food meets the nutritional standards for Wales.' It's what the Government does say right now. When Kevin Morgan said, 'You've succeeded in bringing universally poor free school meals in', the Government's response was, 'They're all nutritionally balanced.' The reality of it is that the system doesn't achieve that at all, and in fact, the way that vegetables are served is enough to put you off vegetables for life.

Okay, I think you've made your point very clearly. Sioned Williams, is there any other question you wanted to ask before we move on to Julie Morgan?

Yes, thank you. There's a great deal to consider there, and if you have, especially perhaps Robbie, you mentioned—

how to maximise that spending through a whole-school system. I'd be interested in having more detail, if you could provide some on that, and some of those ideas, using that spend and that lever of free school meals.

I would just like to return to the issue of emergency food aid. How can we move away—? Clearly, we need to consider preventative approaches, and we've discussed those a little, the dignity, the Big Bocs Bwyd, and the culture around food, but in terms of foodbanks—and this might be a question specifically for Trussell—how can foodbanks ensure that they can move those people who come for emergency food aid away from that? Is there any good practice in terms of engaging with other services and other partners that are successful in that regard?

Yes, thank you. I guess the main way that Trussell foodbanks have piloted over the last few years: how do you help prevent someone needing to come back to the foodbank? Is that sort of what you're asking? We see it as making sure that there are wraparound holistic advice and support services within that place. If you are going without food and you're not able to feed your children, you're going to get to a foodbank if you can. We know that many people are going without and are not accessing foodbanks. The sort of theory that we want to test is that if you put those support and advice agencies within foodbanks, how does that work? How does that help prevent people from needing to use the foodbank in the future? So, 65.8 per cent of our foodbanks in Wales have advice and support services baked in, commissioned into the foodbank; 3,200 people accessed those services and foodbanks in the last year. And 37.8 per cent of those people—this is a UK figure; we can't report for Wales—are expected to no longer need to use a foodbank after receiving advice and support. The financial gains that are made through those services are enormous, so you're talking £4 million in financial gains, £7.1 million of debt reported to be managed through that sort of advice.

There's also the part within foodbanks, Trussell foodbanks, everybody is referred in, so from somebody else in the community, whether that's a housing support officer, a GP, a school, lots of different referral agencies refer in to Trussell foodbanks, and that means that they are already in touch with other services and we can make sure as a foodbank that people aren't being provided a foodbank parcel without having a conversation about what is driving them to need a foodbank parcel that week.

The other thing I guess Trussell foodbanks really prioritise is that warm welcome and a cup of tea on arrival. They are safe community spaces, and many of the best foodbanks in Wales, I'm thinking of Ammanford, of Wrexham, of many others, where a foodbank is just one part of the thing that they provide. They are hive models, they are hubs, they are community spaces, and that helps people access other services such as housing or mental health, or that financial advice. It may be a community space where you're able to build your social connections, but you don't need emergency food any more, and that's huge progress for us. And that's why we talk so passionately about making sure that the discretionary assistance fund, for example, should be helping to prevent people from going hungry, going without food. But at the moment, you may not have any access to advice after applying for the DAF. You may apply as an individual, not having spoken to a support agency at all, in crisis, and not have any advice about what other support you might need to help prevent that in the future.

You make some excellent points; I think we've understood. Just before I go back to Sioned, Altaf, did you have a supplementary question? I missed you earlier.

No, I will leave it there.

You'll wait until later.

I was going to ask about—. There are no protocols, there are no guidelines about what should be provided to these children in schools.

Okay.

Are there—? That was my question.

I think, to some extent, we've covered that, in that the guidelines we have are what's on the menu, rather than how the food is prepared. Sioned, just wrap up if you can.

Yes, if I could just conclude, I just want to return very briefly to what Katie from Trussell said. Now, in terms of the picture that you've painted for us of the importance of dovetailing all of these things together to avoid the need for emergency food aid, is what's coming out of Government—? You mentioned that we may need to look at the DAF and how that operates. Are there are other things that the Welsh Government could do better, in terms of what you've described?

Yes, absolutely. I think it's fair to say that from Welsh Government there is commitment and passion around ending the need for emergency food, and they're on board with that. But I don't think we've seen, really, targeted action to do that. So, food partnerships like local food partnerships could, I think, be an amazing vehicle for connecting people locally, making sure that if you're referring or signposting to other support that you know who's around, you know where places are open. They are also amazing—. They could be amazing places and spaces on, actually, what is driving the high need for emergency food in our community. Let's genuinely research what that is, and let's think about what we can do to solve that. So, it may be transport. It may be there's no supermarket. It may be access to advice. And they may be local solutions. And, I think, local food partnerships, where I've seen them do well, have really thought about, 'Let's not assume what we know about our community, let's talk about why there is a high need for emergency food, or food poverty, whatever we want to call it.'

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thanks, Chair.

I need to move on at this point, I'm afraid. Julie Morgan.

Thank you, just a few quick questions. How do you feel the Welsh Government is working in terms of different areas of work, the different departments? Are they working together? Is it a holistic approach?

Without repeating what we've already covered.

I said in a meeting a couple of weeks ago that Wales has got some of the best policy approaches for tackling poverty, and with particular reference to food. Simon touched a bit on this before, but I don't think it's joined up in practice. And there's a big gap with pulling together well-intended policy documents that have got a lot of substance, interestingly, but then, in practice, we're seeing something completely different. And that difference needs to be filled.

And I think some of it is about how quickly it's interpreted, and how quickly it's pushed out with intent, because, interestingly, this is the third sector, largely, that's sitting here. The third sector wants to make a difference, wants to join to the policy, and wants to bring the results back out. But if the Government is not able to move as quickly, then it needs to find a mechanism that facilitates that much quicker approach to finding the solutions, because it's not there right now—it's not there.

Thank you.

Yes, just to build on that, I guess, food has an impact in so many different areas that I think it's difficult to make all of those things joined up. But more could be done. But it's in health, it's in education, it's in waste, it's in the food division, and all of those bits. We feel that we have an impact in a lot of those different areas, and joining those up is going to be difficult. So, I think there is more that could be done. Some of it works probably better than others.

I think it's really important, though—. There are contradictions. The Government is doing things on one hand that stop you doing things on the other hand. An example would be food safety rules, including around school food, actually, and the way that those are applied. The classic example is that there are schools—I presume they're all over Wales; they're certainly in Carmarthenshire—that will not—. The kids will grow food in the garden that they're not allowed to then cook in the school kitchen for food safety reasons. It's the height of absurdity. The risks there are billions to one of anything happening—even getting a tummy ache—and yet we're prepared to put on the table food that we know will damage children's health in the long term. That's just one example, but there are myriad examples of that.

Secondly, I think it's worth saying at this point that another reason we need to get ahead of the game is because UPFs will be banned from the public plate. In California, it's going to happen by 2032; in Brazil, it's 90 per cent happened already; different parts of Europe are doing it. Actually, the situation in different parts of Europe is largely not as bad as it is here, because they don't put it on there in the first place. But are we going to get ahead of the game, prepare for this, understand that's it's going to come, be the first nation to understand that, or even be the first nation to say that, to follow California's lead? Because the choice is that. Or are we going to do what we normally do, which is be reactive, not use the nimbleness that we should have as a devolved nation, and not take the opportunity available to us?

Thank you very much. What are your views about the future generations commissioner's view that the Welsh Government and other public bodies should collaborate to develop a Wales-wide voucher scheme to support low-income families to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables? Katie.

I'm happy to go. I guess we take the approach of one of our values as an organisation is around dignity, so that's why we focus on income as the solution, so that it embeds choice and dignity over where and how you buy food. We also advocate, along with many others in the sector, around cash-first solutions. It's why we're so supportive of things like the discretionary assistance fund as a solution. Largely, people know how to buy food for their family; it's the lack of income that stops them being able to do so.

I love the idea of the subsidy. This is what we're talking about—we're talking about a subsidy. But I think the subsidy needs to be applied to meals. The reason I say this is because 65 per cent of everybody in Wales cannot cook a meal from scratch. So, if you give somebody fresh vegetables, largely it becomes a Ready Steady Cook exercise that they're not able to respond to. Interestingly, though, if you decide—and Janet mentioned it before—to give people a meal box with a recipe card in there that is subsidised, they can take that home and they can cook it 'A, B, C', which is really important. We have the ability to do that. Please, please, please do not go down the route of subsidising just vegetables. Subsidise meals, or something that leads to meals that people can prepare at home. Sixty-five per cent of everybody cannot cook a meal from scratch. That's a dead important fact.

I think it's important to talk about infrastructure here. Yes, you can give them it, but where do they—. I always quote the example of a small ex-mining town in Carmarthenshire where we've done a lot of work in the school. There were 17 shops there 30 years ago, and two greengrocers. There's now one, it's a supermarket, and I don't have to tell you which of those it is and what it does. At any one point it might have eight items of fresh fruit and veg; it's always got a choice of at least eight power drinks. I think one of the things we need to be looking at is what are the alternatives to that.

We shouldn't accept necessarily that the distribution system that we have is the one that we can take forward. Why are there not more co-operative supermarkets? They exist elsewhere in the world. I've recently been talking to one of the most informed people on this in the sense that this person has a lot of supermarkets all over the world, and actually, it is an alternative, and it is viable, and we need to be putting money into community solutions. I loved it when that was talked about. I see that more than anything else: we're doing too much top down, and not enough bottom up, and realising that our citizens are incredibly resourceful and have answers of their own.

Sarah, and then we're going to go to Altaf.

I was probably going to make a couple of those points. It sounds like a very good idea in theory, and I think there are probably some good bits in there, but a balanced diet isn't just about fruit and veg; it is about everything else as well. It is about having enough protein and enough fibre and all of those other things as well. There is a bit about food literacy and about people not knowing what to do with all of the veg that they get. We see that within our community food members. In some of the Valleys communities, we've had people telling us that cherry tomatoes are an exotic food, which is a good example, I think, of what we think is a normal fruit and veg isn't to everybody.

The other thing is about that delivery mechanism. It is about could this voucher scheme be extended to community organisations, so that they can supply it. And then maybe our fruit and veg is then going out. We're working with Welsh farmers as well, and taking some surplus fruit and veg from them, and so it's all getting that back onto the Welsh plate as well. I think there are some things around delivery and around logistics and what it looks like that the statement in itself doesn't doesn't give enough information about.

Can I call Altaf Hussain, please?

Thank you very much, Chair. My question is on producing and providing healthy, nutritious and affordable food. How are your organisations supporting local growing initiatives and efforts to increase local food supply? What further actions are required by the Welsh Government and other organisations to support similar initiatives?

I could start, I guess, with our Surplus with Purpose scheme, which has been funded by the Welsh Government over the last few years. It's been a little bit stop and start with our funding stopping and starting, but through that, we are able to support particularly farmers. We have done some other work with cheese manufacturers and various other things as well, but a lot of the food that we've handled has been fruit and veg—so, growers. We're able to support them in terms of, if they've got surplus food that they aren't being able to supply to, perhaps, the supermarkets, then we are able to support them in getting that to communities and helping them supply that, through addressing some of the barriers around transport, around getting that off the fields, if it's been left there, around packaging that up and keeping it safe. So, that's what that scheme is all about. In December, we got something like 50 tonnes of food, through that scheme, back into Welsh organisations, and that was all stopped from going to waste as well. So, that's a little bit of an example there.

I think that there is a job to be done as well in that some of the smaller farmers I know in the Vale of Glamorgan, for example—. We work very closely with an organic farm, actually, out in St Brides, Slade Farm; we've got children out there today, and they go out and they learn. It's the whole farm-to-fork understanding. But the farmer there, for example, for his fruit and vegetables to come into the school kitchen here, quite often they'll need to go, first, down to Castell Howell in Carmarthenshire to be washed and prepared, so they can come back into the school kitchen here in Cadoxton, because of contamination and that kind of thing. The food pipeline for so much school food depends on everything being shipped around. Castell Howell do some fantastic work, but we also know, for example, that potatoes sometimes grown in Pembrokeshire make their way out to Jersey to have something else done with them, so that they then come back to Carmarthen to come back to here. So, there are some real things to look at in terms of supporting some of the smaller growers and farmers and getting local food into local communities and schools.

Thank you, Janet. There's a report coming out tomorrow on food processing done by the economy committee. Robbie Davison.

We work with a farmer who's just 2 miles away from us, Alan Hewson; superb. I think he's in his late 70s. He's fantastic, by the way. The problems that Janet's just spoken about, we don't have them, because we're a production unit, so it comes straight into us and we're able to turn that food around and then push it back out as meals. It's the shortest supply chain. If I've got a problem, I can just go and see him in five minutes' time, and we can discuss the problems together. But, again, it goes back to trying to design a supply chain that is predicated on making sure the food is good.

I think we've got some of the absurdities. I'm going to go back to Altaf, and maybe you can feed that into your next response.

What steps should the Welsh Government and public bodies take to ensure that the food served by the public sector increases access to locally produced, healthy, nutritious and affordable food? What barriers are there, and red tape, in terms of the transportation of food from one place to another?

Simon Wright, I think, wants to come in.

Yes, take those things away—and we need to do it urgently. We've known about these problems for a long time. We're prioritising the wrong things in terms of our assessment of risk. We need to make the environment far easier, and, at the same time, we need to recognise that food, and particularly edible horticulture, is becoming more and more investable—the reason being is the insecurity of supplies from everywhere else. So, this is a major opportunity at the moment.

We're actually seeing that start to happen. You look at south-west Wales: there are far more suppliers now than there were five years ago. There is evidence that Welsh Veg in Schools, the initiative, has actually catalysed some of that. If that little bit of investment can catalyse that, think what more investment could do. This means more jobs, it means more economic activity in rural communities, it means things not going half the way across the country. There was a situation where carrots were coming from west Wales, going over to Lincolnshire, and then coming back again—I believe it was two years ago.

We can't have those things. When we see these barriers, we've got to stop shrugging our shoulders and thinking this is all too difficult because of the rules and the regulations. What we have to realise is if the rules and regulations aren't serving our citizens, then they need changing.

Okay. Got it. Altaf, your last question.

This question is really for Can Cook—Well-Fed, but we would welcome input from other witnesses afterwards. Robbie, as an organisation that provides meals to the public and commercial sectors that are free from ultra-processed ingredients, what steps would you like the Welsh Government to take to reduce the consumption of ultra-processed foods?

Quite simply, legislate. Decide that you're going to take ultra-processed food out of the supply chain. If you need to give it three years, give it three years, but let's work our way back. In three years' time, you'll be ultra-processed free. What a step that would be. On this point, I watched an interview yesterday, and the interview was telling the world that the food industry is now developing foods to get round the obesity drug Ozempic. So, it's designing food to make you eat more, because Ozempic is making you eat less. So, it's not trying to improve the food and the food supply chain; it's actually designing it to get round it, because it can, because it's got the resource to do so. Interestingly, if the Welsh Government decided to take ultra-processed food out of the supply chain, it would speed the process up immediately. So, that's my challenge, really: let's get it done.

Thank you. Can I move on to Jane Dodds now?

This is my final question: what, in your view, or in your experience, should the next Government assign as their biggest priorities, in particular in terms of helping poorer families in terms of healthy foods? So, the priorities for the next Government—perhaps just one priority from each of you. Thank you.

Who'd like to go first?

Well, obviously, I would say school food, education, a whole-school approach, educate the kids, involve the community, change school lunches, and put in place food leadership in schools so we can integrate everything with the curriculum.

Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Okay. Robbie Davison.

And I would agree, actually. I'd say school food—improve school food—and remember from the conversations we've just been having here today that there's enough money in school food to really change the system for good.

Thank you.

Can I just say, I like your legislation one, though? Why shouldn't that be a priority for the next Government, to legislate?

Yes, legislate, legislate, legislate.

Yes, okay. Thank you. Just an idea. Diolch.

Katie Till.

I'm going to say what Simon and Robbie said. If we could do that, then I think we'd be making a huge difference to the children of Wales and the future generations, and really closing the gap that's there in healthy life expectancy for our children, going forward, and their families.

Could I just quickly ask: how many headteachers still think the food served in the dining rooms has nothing to do with their role?

Quite a lot.

Thank you. Katie Till, do you want to go next?

Yes, happily. We'd like to see a plan to end the need for foodbanks from the next Welsh Government. And that needs to do everything within Welsh Government's power to increase incomes, think about what crisis support looks like and how do you prevent people—. How do you tackle the drivers that are forcing people through foodbank doors?

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Janet.

Sarah.

I guess mine would be about supporting the third sector and the community sector to do what they do really well, because they support all the people that are left behind elsewhere—the homeless hostels supporting the people that, for whatever reason, ended up where they are; the women that are going into refuges, fleeing domestic violence; the community that doesn't have a community shop. They're the organisations that support all of those people that fall through the gaps elsewhere.

Jane.

Janet, sorry. Janet. We haven't heard from Janet, sorry.

We've heard from Janet.

We haven't had her priority.

Well, she agreed with Simon.

I did say what Simon and Robbie said. But to add to that bit as well, to go on to what Katie said, the answers are in the communities as well. The school community is a very strong part of all of that community. So, the cooking and everything that can happen around a school community is vast, and supports all of those women and their families and everybody beyond. And I think, with a few simple actions, we could make a huge difference in this space.

Okay. So, in this ultra-processed-free world within the public sector, what role is there for public dining rooms, the sort of places that used to exist in the second world war when everybody was living on rations? You could go to a place where you could actually get the sort of meal that was prepared with part of your rations. We haven't talked about this at all, but given that the environment is so—

Yes. We do some activity in this and I'd love to see more, and it could be a social enterprise as well. We can make this entrepreneurial. I'd love to be part of running kitchens that are set up by the community and that are serving great food and are also educating people at the same time. I think there's loads of opportunity for that, but we've got to put the power back with the communities.

And there are a lot of our community organisations that do provide that service. They do provide community meals. And we've been—. Pre pandemic, there were a lot of our organisations that we work with that were providing that kind of service, whether it was lunch clubs for the elderly, or a community cafe in the local community hall. But the pandemic meant that they couldn't do a lot of that, and so the move back to that has been a lot slower than the move away from it. We've been putting quite a lot of energy, as I said, into moving them back towards cooking, because we really believe in the power that that has. It decreases loneliness and isolation, all of those things as well, and brings communities together. I can give you x number of case studies of organisations that are doing this, and they're on our website if anybody wants to look at that as well.

Thank you very much. Janet, you're going to get the last word.

Okay. One bit of our work I haven't mentioned at Cadoxton is connected to the Big Bocs Bwyd. We have got a community cafe that's open five days a week, and it's nutritious food. We have on average 50 people a day who access that, and the meals there are £2.50. You can have a soup, a main and a pudding for £2.50, if that's what you want. But the cost of the food, and some of it is FareShare food, is covered, more than covered, by that £2.50 coming in, so it is cost neutral. What we have now are people who are saying that the difference that it's made to their loneliness is incredible. We've got older members in the community as well who take home as well their food that they're going to eat at night, they microwave it, but they live for coming into the cafe every day, and we're finding now that they're struggling over the Christmas break. So, we're thinking now how do we plan to stay open over Christmas, because the community is really depending on it. As well as that, we've got a number of older people now on their dementia journey, as we're calling it, but who are really depending on the source of community and company that the food is bringing with it.

Okay. Did you want to just add something very, very brief?

Very brief, yes. Just what Janet just said then, so I'll just link to your last question, Jenny, and what Sarah's just said—the ability to cook for people is in every community. It's been there for years. Let's just build upon that, and what Janet's just finished off with there is the power of people sitting around eating meals that they would choose for themselves. Let's remember that, because we all do that every single day of our lives when we can afford to do so, and that's a really powerful message.

Thank you. We'll send you all a transcript of your incredibly rich evidence, just so that you can check that we've captured it correctly. Otherwise, I want to thank you very much, all of you, for your time. We probably won't be publishing this for another month or so, so if there's anything you want in the way of written evidence about Mrs Robinson's cawl or anything else, then feel free.

Members, are you content to note the eight papers that we have in front of us? Anybody want to ask a question? Jane Dodds.

Yes, I’d just like to put on record, on the letter from Rob Jones on page 51 concerning the request for a criminal data observatory—I wondered if the committee, through you, Chair, could write to the Cabinet member to ask for consideration of this going forward. Thank you.

If Members are agreed, I'm sure we can agree to do that. I see no disagreement, so we'll certainly do that. Thank you, Jane.

Can we now agree to move into private session? Thank you very much.