Let's Talk Food - 2024 | North Yorkshire Council

In spring 2024 we asked you to tell us your experiences of getting healthy food and what food you waste. These topics were chosen as part of wider work that we are doing with partners to look at the whole food system in North Yorkshire, from how we grow food, to what we grow, to what we buy and eat and how much we throw away.

At a glance summary of Let's Talk Food responses

2,053 people filled in our survey and told us the following:

while most people in the survey (86%) said they had a healthy and balanced diet, most people (81%) also said they wanted to eat healthier food
while many people (81%) said they found it easy to access healthy food, people said that lowering the cost of healthy food, reducing unhealthy food advertising and supporting local gardens or food projects were most likely to make it easier to get healthy food
around half the people who responded said they never or hardly ever threw away unused food, while around a quarter of people threw away unused food once a week or more. Other data suggested this is likely to underestimate the amount of food wasted in North Yorkshire. For example, analysis of the kerbside waste collected suggested that kitchen food waste made up more than 15% of the contents of bins
the most common things that made it difficult to reduce food waste were food going off and food being sold in larger amounts than needed. Having the skills and expertise to repurpose food and use leftovers is also key to reducing food waste.

What would make it easier to get healthy food?	Percentage of responses
Lower cost of food	59%
Better access to transport	22%
Healthy options in my area	43%
Shops near me with healthy food	42%
Support for local gardens or food projects	50%
Reducing unhealthy food advertising	53%

What makes it difficult to reduce food waste?	Percentage of respondents
Buying too much food	26%
Cooking too much food	20%
Food going off	58%
Everyone eats different things in the house	14%
Changing minds about what to eat	14%
Not knowing how to use leftovers	13%
Food sold in larger amounts than I need	43%

Read the full report of Let's Talk Food results

You can read the full Let's Talk Food report (pdf / 857 KB).

What happened next

The Let’s Talk Food survey was a part of an ongoing series of conversations with people from across the food system and will help us and a range of partner organisations and community groups develop a food action plan supporting accessible, sustainable and nutritious food across the county.

The results of the survey are being shared widely with partners and the public as part of this.

Future actions include:

working with partners from all parts of the food system to develop aims, objectives and actions for Food for the Future. This will be our action plan for food in North Yorkshire.
continuing local conversations with. among others, our farming community, our young people, local food partnerships, people who have experience of food insecurity and small to medium sized enterprises. This will help us make sure the actions we take forward are the right ones across the food system.
working with the Fix Our Food programme to strengthen North Yorkshire’s voice in improving the food system. This is a multi-disciplinary research programme, based at the University of York, which aims to transform the Yorkshire food system to one that is regenerative, benefitting both human and planetary health. You can find out more about this on the Fix Our Food Commission's website.