Emily Potter, Executive Director
May 21, 20141 min
The Incredible Edible Plate movement in Todmorden, England is based on the common language of food and began with a simple seed swap and herb garden. In its first 18 months:
- one third of the townspeople started growing their own vegetables
- 7 in 10 people bought local produce regularly
- fifteen times as many people began keeping chickens
- all eight of the town's schools included locally produced meat and veggies in their lunch menus.
The concept revolves around a learning, business and community plate that spin together around food - by making food the common denominator, a group of volunteers in the town of 15,000 people have accomplished:
-Incredible Edible Green Route - veggie tourism draws people from all over the world
- Food branding was used to ensure locally sourced food was easily recognizable - campaigns such as Every Egg Matters resulted in an increase in profits in 49% of stores that sold locally sourced products
- Agriculture was introduced in the school curriculum due to the creation of an aquaponics system and orchard for students
Though the Incredible Edible Plate started with some very small ideas, it has resulted in an edible mecca that aims to make the town entirely self-sufficient in food production by 2018.