In the north of England, part of Greater Manchester, the small borough of Bury is quietly rewriting the story of how a community can feed itself well. From school kitchens and local markets to a lively food partnership, Bury is proving that local authorities can make healthy, sustainable, and fair food everyone’s business.
From a healthy weight plan to a whole-system approach
Back in 2019, a forward-thinking director of public health gave Francesca Vale, Public Health Practitioner for Food and Health at the Bury Council, a simple but ambitious brief: “research what our partners want in a food strategy.” The outcome was Eat. Live. Love Food, the borough’s first comprehensive food strategy, endorsed by Bury’s Health and Wellbeing Board in 2021.
“We’ve gone from a healthy-weight focus to a whole food-systems approach,” says Vale. “Our tagline is ‘Good food for all. For people, climate and nature’.”
What started with about 20 partners has since grown into a network of more than 80. Today, the Bury Food Partnership links local government, schools, charities, community groups, and businesses across every stage of the food chain, from “farm to fork, and all ages, all stages.”
The coalition is driven by a practical ethos that Vale sums up clearly: “I go about collecting positive, proactive partners; people who say they’ll do something, and then they do it.”
Anchoring food in local policy
The partnership has become an integral part of the council’s overarching Let’s Bury strategy, which influences work on poverty, climate action, and economic development. Embedding food in these mainstream agendas creates space to discuss it in places like regeneration and town-centre planning, where it becomes a lever for inclusion and sustainability rather than a stand-alone topic.
Our tagline is 'Good food for all. For people, climate and nature'
To guide and benchmark progress, Bury joined the Sustainable Food Places network, using its six-theme framework: governance, healthy food for all, catering and procurement, good food movement, sustainable economy, and food for the planet.
In just three years, Bury progressed from bronze (2022) to silver status (2024), the first in Greater Manchester to do so. Vale calls the process “gruelling but transformative.”
“The badge itself isn’t the work; it’s a tool,” she explains. “But once you’ve got that accreditation, people start listening. Internally, it raises your profile with senior managers. Externally, it opens doors.”
Her colleague David Catterall, Chief Executive of the British Association of British Markets, agrees: “It gives credibility. When you can tell senior directors that you’re one of the best in the UK, they understand the value of what you’re doing.”
Meals and markets
Catterall’s remit includes schools catering and Bury’s world-famous retail market with over 280 traders. His team has used food procurement as a catalyst for change, introducing dynamic purchasing frameworks that prioritise seasonal, local produce.
Through partnerships with suppliers like Organic North, Bury’s schools have shifted from reheated processed meals to scratch-cooked, seasonal dishes. “Now our workforce are chefs again,” says Catterall. “Job satisfaction is higher, sickness is lower, and retention is up. We’re using food to build skills and local resilience.”
The approach also supports local enterprise. “We’ve helped small suppliers pilot what they do with us before going to tender,” he explains. “We’re improving food quality for children and supporting local business at the same time.”
The borough’s social-value contracting has produced tangible community benefits, from gardening equipment for eco-warriors in schools to projects reducing food waste in deprived areas.
Free school meals by default
Another key milestone was the implementation of auto-enrolment for free school meals, a project championed jointly by Vale and Catterall. Bury Council introduced an eligibility check and an automatic enrolment service for families already receiving Council Tax and/or Housing Benefit, ensuring that children access the support they are entitled to without needing to apply. This collaborative process involved multiple directorates, including Children’s Services, Place, Corporate Core, and Public Health, working together to verify eligibility and enrol students in Pupil Premium.
We want to show that food can be the solution. It’s about the true value of food
Families were contacted by Revenues and Benefits to confirm their eligibility, with the system operating on an opt-out basis. If no response was received, the benefit was assumed to be wanted. For families, this could mean savings of around £400 per child per year, with additional benefits including automatic access to Holiday Free School Meals, providing year-round support. Beyond the financial impact, access to free school meals through Pupil Premium is linked to improved learning and behaviour outcomes in schools.
Since introducing auto-enrolment, uptake of Free School Meals in Bury Catering-managed schools has increased by 18.4% (as of April 2025), meaning an additional 232 children now receive healthy meals each day. This approach not only unlocks extra Pupil Premium funding for schools but also ensures more children benefit from nutritious meals, supporting both their wellbeing and educational attainment.
Sustainable kitchens in action
Bury’s commitment to food goes hand in hand with their climate action. The council’s catering team has achieved the Green Kitchen Standard, a recognition for public sector caterers taking active steps to manage energy, water, and waste sustainably. Each kitchen measures and monitors food waste, with insights feeding directly into menu development, recipe adjustments, and service methods.
All food waste is composted, and used cooking oil is reprocessed, ensuring minimal environmental impact. At the same time, investments in energy-efficient cooking appliances and sustainable kitchen practices have made Bury’s catering operations the most energy-efficient in the borough.
Food as a solution, not a problem
Bury’s team are deliberate about reframing the food narrative. “The food system used to blame individuals for making poor choices,” Vale says. “I prefer to ask: what can we do so that everyone has a choice?”
Initiatives like the Bury Food Festival celebrate cultural diversity and community pride while linking food with the borough’s arts and regeneration strategies. “We want to show that food can be the solution,” says Catterall. “It’s about the true value of food.”
We’re using food to build skills and local resilience
Recognition and regional leadership
Bury’s work has gained recognition far beyond its borders. The team has presented at Oxford University, Westminster, and London City Hall, where they were introduced as “trailblazers of sustainable food in the UK.”
The market’s role in the national Healthy Start voucher scheme has become a model for community wealth building, connecting local families with local traders. Meanwhile, Catterall’s leadership of a new Greater Manchester Markets Board is helping professionalise markets across the region and position them as tools for regeneration and food access.
Learning from Europe
Although no longer in the EU, Bury continues to look outward. Participation in European projects has proved vital for new ideas and credibility.
In 2023, the borough joined the EU Cascades Cities peer-learning programme, pairing with Copenhagen, a global leader in organic procurement. “It was phenomenal,” recalls Vale. “We saw purpose-built food schools where chefs led food education and 90% of food was organic. It gave us a vision of what good looks like.”
Catterall says the experience reshaped local strategy: “We came home determined to change how we procure food and to link it to social dining, arts and culture, and town-centre regeneration. It all stems from what we saw in Copenhagen.”
A European exchange through Cleverfood
Most recently, Bury hosted a Cleverfood peer-learning study visit, welcoming partners from across Europe to see its initiatives first-hand.
The visit featured stops at Bury Market, Dunsters Farm – a local wholesale supplier of healthy school food – and a local school canteen offering parents a remarkable five meal choices per day. Participants also met the Mayor and members of Bury Council.
The delegation drew three main lessons from the visit. First, sustaining a strong network matters: ongoing collaboration with community partners and the council keeps the Food Partnership dynamic and trusted. Second, awards and recognition are powerful motivators, with local or national accreditations helping to raise food higher on the policy agenda. Third, smart procurement is pivotal; when the whole food chain is engaged, school catering can drive healthier, more sustainable diets.
The food system used to blame individuals for making poor choices. I prefer to ask: what can we do so that everyone has a choice?
Discussions also revealed differing degrees of decentralisation in school meal systems across Europe, underscoring that strategies must be tailored to local governance structures.
Why Bury matters for Europe
For the Cleverfood project, Bury’s example captures the essence of food-system transformation at local level: a mix of cross-sector partnerships, inclusive governance, and procurement reform that turns ideals into everyday practice.
The borough’s story shows that even without major funding – England has yet to match the dedicated support for food partnerships seen in Wales and Scotland – local governments can spark systemic change through persistence, creativity, and shared purpose.
As Vale puts it: “We do all this on a shoestring. Imagine what we could do if we had proper funding.”
