Awarded: £4,992

This data project will gather evidence around the impacts of more localised, organic and circular routes to market, and will explore ways that agroecological traders could be seen as more resource-efficient than globalised supply chains. Organic farming increases soil carbon and biodiversity, and reduces emissions; while social enterprises operating locally – buying from local farmers, selling to local people – reduce emissions associated with transport, refrigeration and packaging. The Better Food Traders’ Regional Food Hubs are also likely to include circular practices, by sharing distribution networks and resources, or by including food surplus redistribution as part of their model.

The toolkit produced in the project will support any food business with similar aims to emulate them, by creating trading benchmarks and identifying key metrics for net-zero, circularity and social impact.

The study will be based on a cohort of 15 Regional Food Hubs.