FOOD SYSTEMS
the vision
Melbourne's identity as Australia's "foodie capital" is central to our local culture, economy, and urban appeal. This reputation drives tourism, bolsters neighbourhood economies, and enhances our city's liveability.
However, our current food system takes a significant toll on the environment – contributing to declining biodiversity, increasing carbon emissions, and environmental degradation. Additionally, many communities across our city struggle to access healthy, regenerative food and are turning to food items that are damaging to their physical health.
As we embark on a journey to transform our food system, we face a crucial challenge: how do we evolve this cherished cultural identity to support a scenario where people and planet can thrive?
Our food system presents the ultimate systemic challenge for transformation— one we cannot ignore as it impacts our health, wellbeing, ecosystems, and determines our future on this planet.
Despite these challenges, incredible work is happening across Greater Melbourne to transform the food system. These place-based innovations, while often struggling to disrupt the status quo, form the backbone of Greater Melbourne's identity as Australia's foodie capital. Think of public markets, vibrant restaurants and cafes, food hubs, and community gardens.
Collaboration Partners
We have been working with a vast array of partners who have engaged in different ways from consulted during the sensemaking process, to co-designing collective initiatives, to delicious meals shared.
Australian Conservation Foundation
Centre for Just Places
Cirque Du Soil
City of Melbourne
Coming to Life
Community Grocer
Cultivating Communities
Dandenong Market
Dark Matter Labs
Foodprint (University of Melbourne)
LMCF
Melbourne Market
Merri Food Hub
Minter Ellison
Moving Feast
Mulberry Group
Natoora
Open Food Network
Odonata
Open Table
OzHarvest
Permaqueer
Queen Victoria Market
RMIT
Soils for Life
South Melbourne Market
Sustainable Table
STREAT
Swinburne University
Transformation Capital
VicHealth
Australian Conservation Foundation Centre for Just Places Cirque Du Soil City of Melbourne Coming to Life Community Grocer Cultivating Communities Dandenong Market Dark Matter Labs Foodprint (University of Melbourne) LMCF Melbourne Market Merri Food Hub Minter Ellison Moving Feast Mulberry Group Natoora Open Food Network Odonata Open Table OzHarvest Permaqueer Queen Victoria Market RMIT Soils for Life South Melbourne Market Sustainable Table STREAT Swinburne University Transformation Capital VicHealth
TRANSITION PATHWAYS
As part of our SOIL process at Regen Melbourne, we spent time understanding Greater Melbourne’s food system. We conversed, read and immersed ourselves into the pain points and opportunities that our system and the people who understand it deeply are experiencing. Through this process we produced a report, where we identified 4 transition pathways to create a food system that is nourishing, regenerative and just:
1. Purpose-Driven Purchasing: Transforming Values into Action
Melbourne, home to over three-quarters of Victoria's population, is the state's primary food consumer. Numerous institutions across the city are significant food buyers. By collaborating across organisations and sectors, we can establish unified criteria for food procurement aligned with shared values. This approach allows for strategic investment in infrastructure and networks supporting local, values-aligned producers and suppliers, ultimately strengthening our food supply chain and enhancing resilience to potential stressors and shocks.
2. Adaptive Organising: A Relational Approach to Navigating Complexity
To disrupt the current system, we need diverse individuals from across the system to engage with messy complexities, negotiate and create solutions together. We propose a new organising model for Greater Melbourne that encourages representatives to emerge from their silos and engage with those outside their usual circles. This structure will embody values that enable effective local food system action, evolving to address new challenges and facilitating a collective mission.
3. Unlocking Value: Surfacing and Embracing the Potential of Food
Our current food system is predominantly driven by profit, overlooking its vast potential to serve both people and planet in more meaningful ways. We envision a food system that acts as a catalyst for regenerating nature, drives more equitable economies, and upholds the self-determination of First Nations communities. This approach recognises food's power to nourish not just our bodies, but our communities, environment, and cultural heritages.
4. Radical Visioning: Celebrating the Innate Beauty of Food
Food intrinsically connects us to nature and to each other. By creating spaces that remind us of this fundamental truth, we can see beyond the corporatised, profit-driven system that currently dominates. This perspective allows us to resist quick fixes and open our minds to profound, transformative changes. We aim to carve out spaces where we can shed organisational labels, gather around a common table, and rediscover our shared identity as part of our beautiful food system.
HOW WE WORK
Dheepa Jeyapalan (right)
Food Systems Convenor
dheepa@regen.melbourne
Our food system is in urgent need of transformation. Many communities across Greater Melbourne struggle with food affordability, access to nourishing food close to home, and our environment is struggling with impact of our current food practices.
Food is a powerful gateway to social and cultural connection, fostering a personal relationship with the natural world. Our food system is intricately linked with the broader urban environment and holds immense potential for driving societal transformation.
Currently, the food system is struggling to support human and environmental health or withstand climate-related challenges. By localising and regenerating our food systems, honouring First Nations knowledge, supporting Safe and Just solutions, and uniting the sector towards a common goal, we aim to create a resilient and sustainable food system for Greater Melbourne.
If you’re interested in joining the movement to reimagine Melbourne’s food systems, get in touch with our Food Systems Lead, Dheepa Jeyapalan, today.
Our Latest Report: the foodie city we need to become
If we want to fix the deeply rooted issues in Melbourne’s strained food system, first we need to make sense of it. How did we get here? What have we come to accept as ‘status quo’? And what’s standing in the way of meaningful collective action? In our latest report, ‘The Foodie City we need to become: Greater Melbourne’s systemic opportunity’, we explore the systemic challenges and abundant opportunities that lie ahead.
The finding here may not surprise many of you. Our food system is under tremendous strain, struggling to nourish our population while depleting our natural resources. However, within these systemic challenges lie transformative opportunities. These issues can be reimagined as levers for change, requiring coordinated action and a fundamental shift in our approach to investment and intervention. These challenges and opportunities are explored here, laying out pathways for action that we can all be part of.
