Public Funding for Sustenance Partners LLP

As the COVID-19 crisis laid bare the vulnerabilities of the corporate food system, supermarket supply chains buckled while small-scale producers stretched already scarce resources even further in the face of soaring demand. Calls for practical support to improve logistics, maximise shared assets and mobilise key stakeholders are growing against the backdrop of a massive economic recession. Combining deep experience in relevant sectors of the food, social enterprise and finance spaces, at Sustenance we recognise that local food is so much more than a commodity - it's a relationship. Sustenance's proposal is designed to take the important work of platforms such as Open Food Network a stage further: with a business model as a design, delivery, service and support partner for local food networks, we will become participants in networks in a variety of contexts, positioned in the important place between solution-led and platform-led innovations. The R&D proposed in this bid will focus on the well-established Food Plymouth network and its potential market, surveying stakeholders, co-creating and trialling model options and supporting tools for local food webs in and around the city, able to be offered out and adapted in other locations in future.