The University of Kent has been celebrating two years of being the World’s first Right to Food University, marking the occasion and next steps with a series of events and new collaborations and projects.
On Tuesday 25 February, Kent hosted an expert panel debate to discuss “Food-fluencers: How big brands and the media are manipulating your diet and what you can you do about it”. Jo Ralling from the Food Foundation and Dr. Lindsey Cameron from the School of Psychology looked at the power the media and big brands have on our diet and what we can do about it – including a look at the Food Foundation’s youth activism work.
Chaired by Right to Food Lead Iain Wilkinson, the event included discussion about peer-to-peer influencers, including the impact of social media on children’s behaviour and diet as well as what could be done to bring about change in policy and the need for a wider change to fix a broken food system.
Ahead of the regulations on junk food marketing changing in the UK this October, the Food Foundation have also recently launched a Food Activist Toolkit to empower citizen voice and encouraging youth activism to bring about change.
On the Thursday 27 February, the university continued it’s free fruit giveaway activity, providing free fresh fruit for our students. This exciting scheme, which will continue to offer giveaways throughout the year as part of the Right to Food, includes a range of produce from our Kent Community Oasis Garden and our student gleaning initiative.
To celebrate the two year anniversary, the university is excited to launch a collaboration with Kent Food Hubs CIC, brining a student-run collection hub to its Canterbury campus. This initiative offers students, staff, and local residents the opportunity to collect their orders of fresh, local produce for free, making sustainable and affordable food more accessible than ever.
Students will play a key role in running the collection hub, gaining valuable experience in food distribution, sustainability, and community engagement. As part of the partnership, Kent Food Hubs will also make monthly contributions of fresh food to the Kent Union Campus pantry – helping to tackle food insecurity amongst Kent students.
As part of this partnership, Kent Food Hubs is introducing student-friendly bundles designed to provide essential, high-quality ingredients at an affordable price, including The Weekly Essentials Bundle (£20) as well as a ‘Fakeaway’ Meal Deal.
Beckie Alves, MD at Kent Food Hubs CIC said: ‘We’re incredibly excited about this partnership. By making local food more convenient and affordable, we’re not just promoting sustainability—we’re strengthening the connection between the university and the wider community, from our network of producers and farmers, to local residents.’
The new collection hub will officially launch later in the Spring, with an opening event featuring free tasters, producer meet-and-greets.
We won the “Benefitting Society” Award for how we benefit the lives of individuals, communities and wider society.
The judges said the Right to Food is: ‘A very well thought out and planned programme, addressing a critical societal issue at present'.
