Food Resilience Network
We depend on a huge food system stretching from farms and factories to ports, warehouses, supermarkets and households. Most of the time that system works so well that we barely notice it. But several things are now putting pressure on it at once. What can we do locally to make Downham Market less vulnerable? And perhaps build something better while we’re at it?
What do we mean by food resilience?
Food resilience means having more than one way to get, produce, share and move food, so that a problem in one part of the system does not immediately become a problem for everyone.
It means adding useful local capacity around it: people who can buy together, places where food can be grown, ways of sharing surplus, and local ways of moving food when normal routes become expensive or unreliable.
Those things can also make everyday life better. Buying collectively can reduce costs. Growing can provide food and skills. Sharing reduces waste and spreads resources. Local distribution can connect producers and people who need food. Win, win!
There are several different warnings in circulation. The important common point is that food is exposed to shocks in energy, fertiliser, transport, climate and international trade.
The Guardian reported in September 2026 that a potentially exceptional El Niño is developing and could produce major disruption to weather patterns around the world. The extent and local consequences are uncertain, but for food systems the important point is that simultaneous crop failures, droughts or floods in major producing regions can affect prices and availability in the UK. Read the latest Guardian analysis.
The Guardian reported warnings that extreme weather, inflation and disruption connected to the Iran war were putting further pressure on UK food security. Read the Guardian report.
In May, Richard Murphy argued that the Strait of Hormuz crisis could create a physical supply shock affecting oil, gas, fertiliser and food. Read the article.
More recent reporting has focused on drought and El Niño, while food manufacturers and farming organisations are increasingly calling for stronger preparedness.
Four pieces of a more resilient food system
These four categories are a simple way of looking at what a town already has, what it could build, and where the gaps are. A single project can sit in one, two, three or all four.
🛒 Buying
Can we buy food together?
Pooling demand, negotiate better prices, buy in bulk, connect directly with supplier, growers or use local food hubs.
Buying clubs • co-operative ordering • food hubs • wholesale purchasing
🌱 Growing
Can we grow more locally?
Use gardens, allotments, community spaces and local knowledge to produce food and build growing skills.
Allotments • community growing • orchards • seeds • seedlings • skills
🤝 Sharing
Can we pool what we have?
Move surplus food, money, equipment, storage, time and knowledge towards where they are useful.
Surplus exchanges • larders • shared tools • community meals
📦 Distribution
Can we get food where it needs to go?
Create collection, delivery, storage and meal systems that don’t depend entirely on normal retail routes.
Delivery routes • collection points • kitchens • storage • transport
Buying: collective purchasing
Buying together can turn small budgets into useful buying power.
Most households buy food separately. That means lots of small transactions, lots of journeys, and little leverage. A small group can sometimes get a better price simply by placing one larger order.
Ideas that could be tried locally
A group buying staple foods in bulk; a regular order from a wholesaler; a producer buying group; a local online order-and-collection system; or a shared food hub combining several suppliers.
The simplest version might just be ten households and one order. It doesn’t need to begin as a business.
Local Assets
Affordable-food experience
Love Downham has shown that there is demand for affordable food and household goods. Its closure also raises a useful question: what local capacity should not be lost, and could some of it be recreated in another form?
Real-world example
Islington Food Co-ops
Groups of residents join together and decide on what items to buy and how much each member should contribute. By pooling the money, co-ops can purchase large amounts of food at wholesale prices. Co-ops can also register with shops, supermarkets, restaurants to get deliveries of surplus food (excess, on its sell-by date or out of season). Read more.
Growing: local food production
Growing is about more than creating a big new community garden.
There are already allotments, gardens, growers and people who know how to raise food. The opportunity is often to connect those scattered resources: spare growing space, seeds, compost, tools, seedlings, knowledge and surplus produce.
What might growing resilience look like?
Seed and seedling swaps; a network of productive gardens; shared tools; community growing plots; orchards; growing courses; local preservation and storage; or schemes that help people who have space but no confidence, and people who have skills but no space, work together.
Local Assets
Growing spaces & practical knowledge
Downham and the surrounding villages contain allotments, private gardens, community spaces and people already growing food. The important next step is finding out where the useful capacity is and whether people want to connect it.
Real-world example
Cultivate, Newtown
Cultivate in Powys combines cooperative food buying and a food-box system with growing space, micro-allotments, community plots, workshops and ways of processing gluts. It shows how several small activities can reinforce one another. Read more.
Sharing: pooling food and resources
Sharing is where resilience starts to become mutual.
Food is only one thing that can be shared. Money, equipment, storage, time, knowledge and connections can all be pooled. This is especially useful when some people have a little to spare and others are under pressure.
Sharing can be very ordinary. A community larder. A neighbourhood surplus group. Borrowing a freezer or trailer. Sharing preserving equipment. Cooking together. A tool library. A repair group. A small savings or mutual-aid circle among people who trust each other.
Not every form of sharing needs to be open to everyone. Small trusted groups are valid too. The important thing is that resources can circulate instead of sitting unused or being wasted.
Local Assets
Downham Solidarity Fund
The Solidarity Fund already demonstrates the basic mutual-aid idea: local people put money into a common pot and people who need help can draw on it. It is not a food project, but it is exactly the sort of local trust and infrastructure that can be useful in a wider resilience network.
Real-world example
Feed Fenland
In nearby Wisbech, Feed Fenland combines fundraising and group buying, links with suppliers, surplus pooling and food distribution. It’s a model that is nearby and working. Read more.
Distribution: getting food where it is needed
Food is not useful if it cannot reach people.
A resilient town needs ways to store, collect, deliver and prepare food as well as produce or buy it. Distribution is also where different projects can become a system: one group might buy, another grow, another provide storage and another deliver.
What could be useful in Downham?
Shared collection points; local delivery routes serving several projects; shared dry or cold storage; community kitchens; transport volunteers; a regular food pick-up day; or agreements allowing one group to use another group’s storage or kitchen when needed.
Local Assets
An existing food-support network
Downham Market & District Foodbank already operates local distribution, volunteer and referral infrastructure. That is valuable existing capability, even though emergency food is only one part of a wider resilient food system and not everyone has access to it.
Real-world example
Galloway Food Hub
Galloway’s food hub combines local producers and wholesalers with ordering, collection, delivery and a community larder. It shows how distribution can be shared instead of every producer or project having to solve logistics separately. Read more.
What could we do in Downham Market?
We do not need to start from scratch. Downham already has people growing food, allotments and gardens, community groups, volunteers, food-support projects, practical skills and places that could sometimes be used for cooking, storing, meeting or distributing food. The opportunity is to connect more of what already exists and to build more capacity where there are gaps.
There are working examples elsewhere. Tamar Valley Food Hubs in Cornwall combines local producers, online ordering, collection, delivery and bulk buying; Galloway Food Hub links local producers with wholesale purchasing, collection, delivery and a community larder; and nearby Feed Fenland in Wisbech brings together group buying, surplus food and distribution. The point is not to copy any of them. It is to see what becomes possible when people connect buying, growing, sharing and distribution instead of treating them as separate problems.
So start small, and start with something useful. Ten households could place one food order together. Gardeners could swap seedlings, surplus and tools. A few people could collect surplus food, share a freezer, organise a community meal or create a delivery run. You do not need a finished organisation, a grant or permission to begin. Ask what is already happening, and see who wants to try the next small thing.