Introduction
Cheshire East Food Alliance (CEFA) is led by CVS Cheshire East with funding and support from Cheshire East Council and Cheshire Community Foundation.
It was launched in October 2023 at an event attended by representatives from organisations across the food system, including Cheshire East Council and Cheshire Community Foundation. The project partners and funders, charity, community and faith food groups, town councils, housing trusts, retailers and national food charities.
We are a member of the Feeding Britain network of regional and local partnerships across the UK.
A Cheshire East Right to Food strategy was launched in May 2024.
The current priority themes are:
Enabling long-term support to reduce the dependence on food banks
Increasing community engagement with food and food knowledge
Increase the uptake of Government funded ‘nutritional safety net' schemes e.g. Healthy Start
Supporting community food projects / initiatives.
Forthcoming Food Alliance meetings:
Tuesday 7 July 2026: 13:30 for 14.00 – 16:00 (Apollo Life Sciences campus, Crewe - TBC)
Tuesday 15 September 2026: 13:30 for 14.00 – 16:00 (Holy Trinity Church, Macclesfield.
Cheshire East Food Alliance #9 - 28th April 2026
Thirty eight colleagues from organisations across Cheshire East and beyond joined us of the latest Food Alliance meeting held at Holmes Chapel Community Centre on Tuesday 28 April.
This was the first meeting following the welcome confirmation funding for a further three years, so there was an element of looking back at what has been achieved in the last three years and priorities for the next. Alongside that there was discussion about the forthcoming Cheshire East food aid count, the new Crisis and Resilience fund (CRF) and the Good Food Bill and Right to Food Commission.
We were joined by Emma Howell from Hope Church in Crewe spoke about the opening of the Community Grocery in Crewe and Liz Heathcote from Citizens Advice Cheshire East who provided an update on the Feeding Britain Pathways from Poverty project.
You can access the sides from the meeting here.
Graham Brown is the sector development officer for the Food Alliance.
You can contact Graham via graham.brown@cvsce.org.uk
Vision:
Ensure a food secure Cheshire East where residents have a ‘right to’ affordable, quality, healthy, sustainable food’.
Our vision and ambitions aim to reflect:
Local Council and Health care priorities
Funder priorities
National strategies/reports e.g. Govt food strategy / Broken Plate Report / The Courtauld Commitment 2030 – through a local lens
Reflect the challenges of food groups: food, funding, donations, volunteers
Represent local resident needs (those with lived experience)
Local private ‘food’ sector challenges
For the Alliance to be successful we need a cross representation of organisations including community groups, charities, faith organisations, local government, the NHS, housing trusts, retailers, other food providers, and a wide range of other groups / people, to come together, to work to address the significant issue of food insecurity.
The Food Alliance will:
Develop a ‘Right to Food’ strategy.
Work at three levels:
Directly with individual members - providing support where necessary e.g. setting up a new food pantry, social supermarket
As a network - so providing support, advice and resources the whole group can benefit from e.g. access to training, event programme
Aim to influence policy decisions - Council and other organisations, locally and regionally
Follow a partnership approach
Ensure positive engagement with everyone in need
Provide advice and advocacy: local champion for food related issues / relevant national campaigns e.g. Love Food, Hate Waste etc
Ensure alignment with relevant national organisations WRAP, Feeding Britain etc
Work Cheshire wide with Cheshire West & Chester and Warrington, and beyond, where advantageous (appropriate) e.g. influencing FareShare
The Food Foundations roadmap for reducing food insecurity in the UK: a review
Building capacity across our local community food aid network
The New Government Food Strategy
Cost of Living Announcements and future food policy updates
The Rise of Affordable Food Clubs
How can the new Coronation Food Project help reduce food insecurity?
Everyone has a right to food – have your say and join the Cheshire East Food Alliance
Stronger Together: tackling food insecurity must be a collective endeavour
A resource for members of the public to find out what community food support they can access.
And for service providers and support organisations to understand the scope and scale of community food provision across Cheshire East.
Healthy Start
If you’re more than 10 weeks pregnant or have a child under 4, you may be entitled to get help to buy healthy food and milk. Check out the video below to find out more about the scheme.
Translated Leaflets
This is a library of resources for food projects, to share good practice and save time. It includes toolkits, webinars and template documents such as policies and job descriptions.
