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Food brings people together, connecting family, friends and communities. It can play a central role in helping people to live well in communities, contributing to people’s health and happiness and as a thriving part of local economies. Yet around 10% of people in the UK are experiencing food insecurity, rising to well over 20% in Nottinghamshire. Our projects are helping to develop local insight and identify effective and affordable actions to create inclusive, food secure communities.

In addion, we work with representatives of organisations and groups across the supply chain of alternative food networks, for example:

 

Collaborators

We work with multi-disciplinary teams of researchers in the Schools of Medicine, Biosciences, Life Sciences, Computer Science and English. Our collaborators on these projects including:

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

This research relates to the following SDGs

 

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Research summary

We have linked projects, completed between 2023 and 2025, that aim to develop local evidence to build understanding and enable policymakers and other stakeholders to pursue evidence-based, effective responses. These are:

• Understanding 'More than Food’ (MtF) meal services (Research England funded) - This revealed how the community-based food ecosystem can innovate and be more cost-effective, and how it can be better supported by policymakers
• The Food and Nutritional Security Survey (FANSS) (Research England funded)  - This examined levels of food insecurity across Nottinghamshire and the nutrition and health impacts. This survey supported the Nottinghamshire Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) on Food Insecurity (2024)
• Co-producing food and nutrition security mapping (City as Lab funded)  - This used the projection augmented relief model (PARM) based at City as Lab to map food insecurity risk across Nottinghamshire and the locations of grocery stores, fast food outlets, food banks, walking times to food outlets and public transport routes. This data visualisation has provided a basis for discussion with multiple stakeholders, including city and county public health and elected councillors, to find sustainable interventions to improve food access and envision pathways towards food secure communities
• Food Inequality and Resilience in Nottingham (City as Lab funded) - This aims to uncovers ‘untold’ stories of how food insecurity impacts Nottingham communities experiencing homelessness, addiction, and other challenges. Through storytelling and co-created art, the project seeks to build empathy, challenge stigma, highlight resilience, and guide the development of inclusive, dignified, and responsive food policies

 

Research findings

These projects build on our published research on food insecurity and interventions that aim to build local food security.

• Long, G., Nica-Avram, G., Harvey, J., Lukinova, E., Mansilla, R., Welham, S., Engelmann, G., Dolan, E., Makokoro, K., Thomas, M. and Powell, E., 2025. Machine learning on national shopping data reliably estimates childhood obesity prevalence and socio-economic deprivation. Food Policy, 131, p.102826.
• Thomas, M., Rose, P., Coneyworth, L., Harvey, J., Goulding, J., Stone, J., Padley, M., O’Reilly, P. and Welham, S., 2025. Food insecurity amongst universal credit claimants: the benefits and nutrition study (BEANS), a cross-sectional online study. European Journal of Nutrition, 64(3), p.115.
• Luca, N.R., Smith, M. and Hibbert, S., 2023. A community-based participatory research approach to understanding social eating for food well-being. Emerald Open Research, 1(10).
• Smith, M. and Harvey, J., 2021. Social eating initiatives and the practices of commensality. Appetite, 161, p.105107.
• Luca, N.R., Smith, M., Hibbert, S. and Docherty, B., 2019. How to make a healthy, sustainable diet accessible and affordable for everyone?. House of Lords Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Report of Session 2019, 20.

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