One of our key aims is to introduce the principles of the circular economy to the production and distribution of good quality nutritious food for the Austerity Food Retail (AFR) sector. AFR addresses people most affected by austerity and the cost of living crisis. It includes social supermarkets, pantries and other forms of community shop offering highly discounted products, and often making use of surplus, waste or rejected foods which would otherwise be thrown away. 

The circular economy is a system where food and other materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting.

Our original plan was to introduce vermiculture – worm farms -  into the composting of food and other organic waste at our growing sites in the Spring of  2025. The aim was to use the organic fertiliser that the worms produce to improve the quantity and quality of the food we produce for AFR  during the summer months.

But one of our partner organisations, Egino Emerging  https://www.eginoemerging.org/

had the capacity to help out now and so we have taken on our first worm farm to introduce the principles of the circular economy to the production and distribution of good quality nutritious food for the AFR sector.

The bins are continuous flow wormeries. We enlist the people on probation working at our growing sites to top them up with old waste from the gardens  together with shredded cardboard (worms love the cardboard) and keep it well watered. The pipes at the front create a ledge and the worms live on top of this, in all the organic matter. They eat the organic matter and the result is a continuous flow of organic fertiliser that falls below the ledge and can be collected through the holes at the bottom for use on the growing sites to improve the quality and quantity of the yield and so turn food and other organic waste into good quality, highly nutritious food for AFR.

What’s more, by supplying us with these worm farms Egino also help us fulfil two further aims. By opening up the possibility of scaling  up for commercial production of organic fertiliser we can potentially create new income streams for AFR to bulk buy non surplus food supplies to supplement the dwindling supplies of surplus and donated food currently available to them. Many prison and community payback facilities in the United States do exactly that, so why can’t we do the same here to help the commercial sustainability of AFR?

https://eu.thegleaner.com/story/news/2019/03/25/worm-farming-saves-henderson-county-jail-thousands/3221605002/

But secondly, not only does this open up commercial possibilities to support AFR, it also helps fulfil our aim of opening up employment and self employment opportunities for the people on probation working on our project when they have successfully completed their unpaid work requirements with us.

So in the new year we will be introducing  Egino’s  Worm Farm Business Training and Support Course as an option for people on probation placed with us https://www.eginoemerging.org/free-worm-farming-course  - not only using worms to turn the circular economy, but also to turn the lives of people on probation round.

Sherlockai

Nornir has been working with volunteers to try and harness the power and the surge in interest around AI.  The plan is not to try and just maximise profit by using AI, but to use the technology for social purposes.

We have therefore developed a new Chatbot style system that is aimed to help ex offenders to adapt to life on release from prison. The release from prison can be a very challenging time for people, especially if the person has spent a long time in jail. Often these problems are simple to overcome but not if you are already traumatised by your life situation. The chatbot can help to provide this support by being available 24/7 ready to answer questions and support people who are most vulnerable.

An important point to note is that the chatbot hasn’t been designed by some teckies working in isolation. Its been co-developed by people with lived in experience of the criminal justice system making it relevant to their needs.

There has been a lot of interest from organisations who support ex offenders and we now have 2 live systems up and running.

For more information visit the web site at: https://www.sherlockai.org/

Peas growing in a raised bed

In the first 3 months we have been busy building the necessary partnerships required to make the work sustainable. This has included the following:

We have established a partnership with the Manchester Urban Diggers who are based at Platt Fields in Manchester. MUD already have a working kitchen and are excited about starting to also use it to create ready meals using their home-grown food surpluses. They are planning to run one cooking session in July as a test run. But due to the fact that its early in the season we must source surplus foods from other providers because the crops in the ground are not ready until Autumn.

We are looking to get Community Payback individual placements to help staff up the cooking process and are in negotiations with GM Probation about making this happen. Also how to get a CP team to work in the gardens growing food for the kitchens.

We have made links to a range of other interested organisations including Eat Well Manchester, Open Kitchen, Bread and Butter and also exploring the option of using a commercial kitchen at Yane Restaurant in Chorlton.

MUD is planning a Gleaning activity in the Autumn and we are making preparations for the CP teams to be part of the process and for the food gleaned, to be used in the production of ready meals.

Nornir has created a strategic partnership with GM Probation exploring how we can further develop the use of CP teams and individual placements to help support the Foundational Economy.

Staff at Nornir are seeking to build a large scale vermiculture programme in North Wales. The aim is to process 1000 tons (a year) of cow manure into organic fertiliser and once the work process is established, we will be looking to try and import the model into Greater Manchester.

Development of the growing area at Forever Fields

Nornir have been busy working with other stakeholders at Forever Fields in Manchester. To date we have arranged for a team of Community Payback workers to visit the site each Monday where they are working creating a new growing space. The results so far are shown in the photo above. So the growing of food has started at Forever Fields  - but its next season before we get full crops.

In the kitchen at Forever Fields, we have already cooked 186 ready meals using surplus and donated foods. This has been achieved using a chef and 2 community volunteers as well as CP workers helping out in the kitchen.

We have plans to continue to cook ready meals at the site and donate them to local Pantries via our links with Eat Well Manchester: https://www.eatwellmcr.org/

Our plans have been helped because Forever Fields are now appointing a full-time centre manager to help coordinate all the activities at the centre.

There has been development at the site with a base being built for the container that will be used to grow mushrooms. The plan is to use the mushrooms in the ready meals as a way of providing protein without resorting to cheap meat.

The major barrier at the moment is accessing enough surplus foods for the cooking. We are in talks with a range of other organisations who are involved in austerity retail to see how we can over come the problem. One possibly activity is to join a Gleaning later in the year where we can gather a large crop of some specific vegetables.

We are also pursuing links in regarding to developing a vermiculture presence on the site. This has been mostly with the experts at Egino Emerging: https://www.eginoemerging.org/

Ready meals waiting collection

Pilot production run on the 3^rd June 2024 produced 59 meals for donation to foodbanks, community pantries etc through the charity Eat Well Manchester https://www.eatwellmcr.org/

A chef and 2 community volunteers were joined by 2 volunteers from the Monday UPW team (Community Payback Scheme) who worked as kitchen assistants preparing ready meals from the produce grown and supplemented by donated and surplus produce.

One of the aims was to produce a nutritious and eco friendly meal to help combat both food poverty but also protein poverty. As such we substituted meat with mushrooms with a mixture of seasonal vegetables.

The next pilot production run is planned for 24^th June 2024 with 120 meal target, then every Monday thereafter (surplus and freshly grown food supplies permitting).

Further sessions are planned as we now seek additional surplus foods from the community and local businesses.

 The work is funded by the National Lottery Awards For All Programme