Food Standards Agency launches second year of the Dame Sheila McKechnie awards

Thursday 15 September 2005

Ref: 2005/0599

The Food Standards Agency today launched the second year of the annual Dame Sheila McKechnie Awards.

The awards, which were first launched in September 2004, celebrate the valuable contribution that community food initiatives make to their local communities, in terms of improving access to high-quality food at affordable prices.

Each year the FSA will be awarding funding worth
15,000 (
5,000 over three years) to two local community projects in the UK.

Last year�s winners of the awards were the Buttershaw Eatwise Project in Bradford, which provides a community caf
and food co-op for local residents, and the �Get Fresh� Project in Dorset, which runs cookery workshops and sources local food to sell within rural communities.

Julia Unwin, FSA Deputy Chair said: 'As a passionate campaigner on food issues, Sheila would have been proud of the standard of entrants we had in the first year of the award scheme. Community food initiatives have a very important role to play in encouraging people to think about the food they eat and where it comes from. It will be exciting to see what new initiatives enter this year.'

The judging panel for this year�s award includes Channel 4 broadcaster Jon Snow, Deputy Chair of the FSA Julia Unwin and Professor of Food Policy at City University Tim Lang.

Interested community groups are asked to submit an outline of how they would use the funding to help develop their work in tackling community food issues. All shortlisted projects are then visited by the Agency so that they can see the project in action.

The deadline for entries for the 2005 award is Monday 5 December 2005. The winners will be announced at the Agency's board meeting in March 2006.

Further details and an application pack are available from the link below. Alternatively, a pack can be obtained by emailing mckechnieaward@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk or telephoning 020 7276 8146.

Notes to editors
The award was first launched in September 2004 to commemorate the contribution made by Dame Sheila McKechnie in helping establish the FSA.

Sheila McKechnie was a lifelong consumer champion, having previously been Director of Shelter and later the Consumers� Association (now Which?). Sheila died on 2 January 2004, aged 55, after a long battle with cancer. The Agency wished to commemorate Sheila�s memory by developing an award in her name.

Winners of the 2004 Sheila McKechnie awards:

Buttershaw Eatwise Project
The Buttershaw Estate in South Bradford is an area of high deprivation where residents are likely to be benefit-dependent, unemployed and experience health problems.

For the past 13 years the Buttershaw Baptist Church has successfully run a family centre providing a community caf
and food co-op for local residents that sells good-quality food at reasonable prices. The centre also holds a number of cookery sessions focusing on issues such as managing a healthy diet on a limited budget, food preparation and food hygiene.

Over the next three years, the Dame Sheila McKechnie Award will ensure that these services continue to run and develop further. Future plans include educating children and young adults on the importance of a healthy diet and exercise, and expanding its current cookery classes.

Get Fresh Project, Dorset
The 'Get Fresh' Project, which is run by the Dorset Food and Health Trust, was set up to combat diet-related illnesses within Dorset.

They currently run cookery workshops, 'Grow It, Cook It, Eat It' and a 'Get Fresh' project that sources local food and produce and sells it on to rural communities at affordable prices.

The Dame Sheila McKechnie Award will help the Trust to further improve 'Get Fresh' by helping towards the costs of running a delivery van and by allowing a subsidy of 20% on all fruit and vegetables. There are also plans to focus on teaching single men and young parents basic cookery skills and to educate children on food issues, ensuring that they understand where the food on their plate comes from.

The Dorset Food and Health Trust will work with various rural communities over the next three years, including North and East Dorset and Purbeck, ensuring that the project becomes more sustainable and self-financing.