Charlottetown mapping out the city's local food resources

The City of Charlottetown is soliciting inputto create a map offood available in the capital area tohelppeople get access to healthful food.

The local food asset mapis an initiative of the Charlottetown Food Council working group, created in 2018 to identify and improve barriers to good, healthfulfood. The map aims to highlight the places where locally-produced foods can be accessed, grown, prepared, sharedor bought.

"One of the outcomes from this will be to see kind of where there are some gaps in Charlottetown," said Jessica Brown, sustainability officer for the city of Charlottetown.

"More than that, it's actually about kind of applying more of a positive lens and showing people what assets they might have in their community that are already there that they don't know about."

The city has launched an online community food survey asking people what their needs and wants are, and also plans to hostthree public consultations in March and April.

What are the barriers?

"We've put together a good list of what we think are the assets but we think that members of the community, you know, need to put their input in so that we can get the full picture." said Brown.

The survey asks people who live and work in Charlottetown questions including what their barriers are to finding healthful food, whether it's transportation, cost, or other factors. It asks residents if they grow their own food, and where they purchase food whether it's convenience stores, farmers markets or supermarkets, food delivery or restaurants.

"It is kind of about highlighting what we already have and raising awareness of the strengths in our community when it comes to food."

The mission of the Food Council is to examine the existing food system andtake action to improve it.

The councilpreviously brought forward a food charter that was passed by Charlottetown city council in 2019to set guidelines covering all aspects of food in the city, including the promotion of local food production and procurement, improving food security, reducing food wasteand using culinary assets in the community to connect locals and visitors with food.

In addition to being apublic resource, Brown said the map may alsobe used by program and policy-makers to address gaps.

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