The community meals project started in 2023 with a Primary Healthcare Network (PHN) Covid Reconnection Grant. We arranged to do two community meals. One was at Vivace festival where we catered for a group of people who ordinarily wouldn’t attend a festival like that due to cultural and economic barriers got a free meal and free tickets as well. This meal was catered for by a local restaurant and we just provided the infrastructure to serve. It was a test of the concept of the community meal, and allowed for thinking about the method and also the context for the meal. There was no sustainability principles in that meal provisioning. It was more for human health (mental and physical). The second meal was a cooking workshop at Armidale Secondary College and the meal was prepared by the students for their parents. Members of the SLA Food Group ran the workshop (three course meal!) with the students in the College’s big industrial kitchen. The meal was served in the school hall. Again this didn’t have sustainable sourcing principles in the meal. It was a success but that question lingered beyond the time of the pilot phase 1 meal project.

In 2024-25 we had a small seed grant from UNE to pilot phase 2 about really designing building community food infrastructures for planetary health. This research took us to Sydney to explore community meal provisioning initiatives. From there we started developing a community meals methodology, only in theory, to build local food systems for planetary health. At the end of 2025, Jen Hamilton was able to pilot a meal with the developing method in practice.

The meal was actually a simple sausage sizzle for an exhibition at the showgrounds. But we managed to sustainably source the protein (local sausage supplier and local mushroom grower). Then we sourced organic veggies from a local food box group for the slaw and onions. We just bought sauces, saurkraut and wraps/bread from local market bakery chain stores and supermarkets. The method wasn’t perfect. We massively over-catered as well. So there was some waste that was donated. But it was a start of trying to figure out a simple community meal plan that could shorten supply chains and deliver high quality food. The sausage sizzle’s nutritional value really needs to be properly mapped in terms of the Planetary Health Diet, as does the specifics of the meat supply chain. We also need to find local suppliers. But it was an awesome test of the basic concept and one that showed it has real potential to do the work we thought it could do in theory.

We plan for more meals in 2026.