The Big Moston Food Club

Helping Moston Residents eat better for the planet, their health and their pockets.

In partnership with Climate Outreach and the Centre for Accelerated Social Transformation (CAST), in summer 2023 In Our Nature delivered an online food challenge to support the people of Moston to cook tasty, healthy meals whilst saving money and helping the environment. ​

Food and the planet

According to the National Food Strategy, a big shift is needed in the way we eat. The UK needs to reduce our meat consumption by 30%, moving our diets away from meat towards plant-based proteins, fruit and veg to reduce our impact on the environment.

For some this might mean a big change, and if we’re used to everyday fry ups and chicken curries, it can be difficult to know where to start. Through our work as part of the In Our Nature programme, we’ve been working closely with residents across Manchester to help understand the barriers and find out what support is needed to help people make this shift.

Getting to know the community

Building on our learnings from Manchester is Green, where we challenged football fans across the City to make plant-based swaps and tactical substitutions, we wanted to work closely with residents to find out what other key hooks and topics get people thinking more about what they eat at home.

For this project we worked with residents in Moston, a close-knit area in North Manchester. To help understand the current barriers and feelings towards food in Moston and how the topic of sustainable diets is communicated, we began by running a focus group with residents.

The focus group found that people were proud of Moston, its creativity and sense of community, but that they often don’t feel involved in the climate conversation. As a relatively low-income area, the residents felt local people were already likely to prepare food sustainably and people won’t willingly waste food or energy. They felt it was most important to be able to visualise and understand what benefits changing diet or food preparation might bring to daily life in Moston – such as bringing people together, health, or a sense of ‘doing our bit’.  

The Big Moston Food Club

In summer of 2023, we challenged 100 Moston residents to take part in The Big Moston Food Club - a community Facebook group with tips, activities and tailored advice to help members get cooking from scratch, eating more veggies and getting to know their community. ​

Building on the learnings from residents and through the focus group, we also focused on the topics of food growing, nature, and family. These topics encouraged participants to get to know each other, share tips and knowledge, and inspire each other to make changes at home. 

We also ran an in-person cooking class at the Miners Community Arts & Music centre in Moston for members of the Facebook group to give people a chance to meet one another in person – deepening trust – and to learn hands-on cooking skills.

The results

So, how did the members do? Using surveys, we tracked how each member got on, from what they had learnt, and how the support from the group helped them make changes to the food they ate, cooked and shopped at home.

Of the 20 people who filled in the survey at the end of the 6-week challenge:

• 70% (14) are now waste less food as a result of taking part in the group 

• 65% (13) have saved money 

• 25% (5) now eat less meat  

• 58% (11) now eat more fruit and vegetables 

We also saw changes in the attitudes and behaviours of the Facebook group members since taking part, with 5 people now stating that eating less meat and dairy is a good way to reduce their impact on the environment, that supermarkets should provide more plant-based food options, and 6 people stating that it’s now easier to make meals that don’t contain any meat and dairy.

We also saw members of the group get stuck in with trying new recipes and tasty veggie food at home. Here’s some snapshots of what happened on the group:

What did we learn?

Through the Big Moston Food Club, we learnt a lot about what residents care about when it comes to food, and how best to communicate the issue of everyday cooking and eating that’s good for the planet. Here’s what we learnt:

• Food = connection: Members were enthusiastic about coming together as families and communities to prepare and share food. Cooking and diet was intertwined with happy memories of family dinners, childhood and friendships, and plays a central role in participants’ understanding of who they are and where they come from. The most trusted ambassadors for changing diets were other members of the Facebook group – not celebrities or ‘experts’.    

• Be positive, framing is important: Members preferred to talk about the benefits of eating less meat and dairy, like saving money and becoming healthier or food just tasting better, rather than climate and ‘sustainability’ messaging. When it came to vegetarian food, people didn’t like the phrase ‘plant-based’ and shared it made them feel like it wasn’t for them. Plain talking worked best: if you mean “eat more vegetables”, say so.  

• Celebrate the easy wins: Many people are already taking action at home to reduce their impact, and members were proud to share the actions they take, like eating leftovers, batch cooking, and not throwing food away. It was important to highlight these actions, and not shame individuals for not having the “perfect” sustainable diet.

• Make it a local story: The best stories were those where people saw changing diet as fitting with local life – such as a chance to bring people together, or a sense of ‘our community doing our bit’.

• Community support: More is needed to support communities with the cost of living and cooking skills, in ways that are practical, relevant, and shaped with community voices and needs in mind.

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