In the midst of political shifts and uncertainty, there is a new wave of politics bubbling under the surface. This new story is redefining what meaningful citizen participation means for governments. We spoke to Jon Alexander, co-founder at the New Citizenship Project and Trustee of the Food Ethics Council, to find out more about this emerging trend. Anna: What positive changes can we see in today’s politics? Jon: It might not be immediately obvious, but

Earlier this month, a group of us had the opportunity to gather around the question “How can thinking of ourselves and others as food citizens, rather than consumers, help solve the challenges of our food systems?”. After a warm welcome from Dan Crossley from the Food Ethics Council, Jon Alexander, co-founder of the New Citizenship Project, took us through the mindset shift that is currently happening in the wider world, from consumerism to citizenship. At

Treating people as food citizens isn’t simply thinking about our customers or members differently. It is about how we interact with people within the food system, including our employees. If change starts from within, how can we support people within our organisations first? How do we nurture our immediate community and how do we empower our colleagues? We spoke to Adam Thompson, Chief Rebel at Rebel Kitchen, to hear about how one business approaches its

The “solution” I hear mentioned most often when it comes to solving the current climate crisis is ‘education’. Indeed, education is a first step to any meaningful action, but it cannot lead to action without a sense of agency – the belief that we can create change. On its own, education brings a sense of responsibility without necessarily the tools to create change, which either leads to denial of responsibility (and shifting responsibility to someone

How to spot our fellow food citizen leaders You believe in people. You want to do the right thing for society to thrive now and in the future, but you know that you can’t do it alone. A key step to building our food citizenship movement – and to getting anywhere in the ethical food sector – is to find the right partnerships. Whether we are bringing multiple organisations to work towards a common goal

Good news: people already care. As citizens, we care about animals being treated humanely, about the wellbeing of the environment, about the livelihoods of those who grow and make our food. Don’t believe it? Before diving into the Food Citizenship movement, I didn’t either. And that’s because by only talking about the consumer, we are missing the bigger picture. The Common Cause found that most people care more about things like ‘helpfulness’, ‘equality’ and ‘protection of

Since starting work on the Food Citizenship movement, I have received countless enquiries to collaborate, to help grow the movement and to start the movement in a particular sector, city, or even country! There is a lot of appetite to get involved and great potential for this new shift in society to take hold. So how do we grow this movement? How do we spread this idea that ‘citizen’ is a much broader representation of

As food citizens, we believe in the power of people. We want to and can have a positive influence on the food system. We also know that we express more of our true selves as citizens than we do as consumers. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said: “Show people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” (Her TED talk here is worth the detour!) So what story

A new idea is taking hold across the UK food and farming sector: Food Citizenship. This idea tells us, and others, that we are not just consumers at the end of the food chain, but participants in the food system as a whole. It tells us that we have the power not just to choose, but to shape the choices on offer. We can and indeed are starting to work together in interdependence, seeking not