I have worked in different roles in the food sector in the UK for 15 years, including running my own cafe, setting up a pay-as-you-feel cafe for Macmillan Cancer Support, starting a social enterprise focused on fresh produce distribution during the Covid-19 emergency, and managing The Bevy, the UK's only community-owned pub located on a housing estate. My decade of experience at The Bevy gave me a close-up view of food inequality in my ostensibly wealthy UK city and has left me with a keen ambition to find and offer solutions that put those experiencing the challenges of food inequality at the centre of the changes needed to overcome them.

While working on Brighton and Hove's Covid-19 emergency food response, I came across a relatively new method of community-led farming in the Netherlands called Herenboeren. I believe this approach can be adapted to place food inequality alongside co-operative sustainability and my Fellowship will offer me the chance to take a close and detailed look at this prospering project. I hope my research will inform burgeoning efforts in the UK to connect people on low incomes directly to farms to offer them food security and a richer food environment