Westminster and Bristol are national 'Food Champions'
Wednesday 11 June 2008
The two national winners of the first Food Champion Awards for local authorities are Westminster City Council, for its work with the Chinese business community, and Bristol City Council for its community diet and nutrition initiatives. The regional and local Food Champions winners were announced by the Agency in April.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA), which organised the awards, made the announcement and presented awards to Westminster and Bristol – and to nine other regional and local winners – at the Agency’s Parliamentary Reception for Food Safety Week, at the House of Commons on 10 June.
The other winners, by theme, were:
Improving food safety and food standards
- Birmingham City Council – West Midlands Regional Champions
- Cambridgeshire County Council – East of England Regional Champion
- London Borough of Islington – Food Champion
- London Boroughs (consortium of all London local authorities) – Food Champion
Improving community diet and nutrition
- Cardiff Council – Wales Champion
- Huntingdonshire District Council – East of England Regional Champion
- Manchester City Council – North West Regional Champion
- Oxford City Council/Oxfordshire County Council – South East Regional Champion
- Rushcliffe Borough Council – East Midlands Regional Champion
Although all award winners will have demonstrated excellence and innovation in delivering positive outcomes for their communities, being a Food Champion does not stop with the award itself. Winners will be working with the Agency and other organisations in the coming year to champion their approach, and learning to encourage and share good practice.
David Statham, FSA Director of Consumer Protection and Enforcement, said: ‘Winning a Food Champion Award is a major achievement and a clear recognition of the outstanding work done by local authorities in improving food safety and community diet and nutrition in their area. As a Food Champion they will have demonstrated good practice and shown outstanding commitment to making their local community a better place to live.’
Details of all the winning initiatives can be found in this month’s issue of FSA News (pages 7-12) at the link towards the end of this page.
Background
In October 2007, the Agency launched the Food Champion Awards to acknowledge the tremendous work being carried out by local authorities in improving consumer protection in relation to food. No one is better placed to make food safer and healthy eating easier in local communities than the food professionals in local government.
The awards recognise that local authorities are increasingly raising their standards of performance in this area; finding new and inspiring ways of helping people in their communities eat more safely and healthily.
The awards, which complement existing local government awards, including the Beacon Scheme, were developed with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Trading Standards Institute, the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services and the Improvement and Development Agency. All of these bodies were represented on the assessment panel choosing the award winners.
In this first year of the Food Champion Awards, applications were invited from local authorities in England and Wales for work on two themes:
- improving local food safety and food standards
- improving community diet and nutrition
The Agency received 72 entries for this year’s awards, and the overall quality made shortlisting a difficult task. Those selected were invited to present their work to an assessment panel during February and March 2008. The number of local authorities applying was more than had been anticipated originally and highlighted the commitment of local authorities to improving food safety and diet in their communities.
The panel decided to award Food Champion status for food safety to five local authorities and for improving community diet and health to six local authorities. This included nine regional Food Champions across the two themes and two additional local Food Champions in the London region, which reflected the quality and number of entries received from London authorities.
For further information the awards, email foodchampion@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk.
Related links
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