Our second food seminar was held two weeks after the opening seminar on Thursday 16th October 2025 at 6.00pm. About 60 people crowded into the venue kindly hosted by City of Liverpool College. It was our first time in this location and we chose it to fit in with the theme of food.
Here is a report on the evening by Engage Board member Diana Heredia:
The City of Liverpool College Campus in Duke Street, was a fitting venue for the second instalment of our Annual Seminar Series. Seminar Two: Farm to Fork – is our food journey sustainable? and was served by students of the Catering & Hospitality course. The wonderful pies made by Homebaked Bakery Anfield, treated the attendees to a taste of one of the remarkable products made in Liverpool.
The evening started with our now trademark short connection with each other that includes having a short chat with the other attendees. My personal highlight was the enthusiastic answer to my simple question: What made you come to this event? It was: ‘Because it’s important, they are always interesting and nobody else is doing this!’
My impression from the rest of the room was that people were enjoying connecting to everyone else before being drawn back to listen to the speakers.
After this Gerry Proctor, Chair of Engage, went on to introducing the people on our showcase: Sally-Anne Watkiss, chair of Homebaked Bakery was announced to speak for Angela McKay and Dr. Jens Thomas, technical director of Farm Urban instead of Dr. Paul Myers, as well as Daniel Heffy, Executive Chef at GSG Hospitality. Equally important to mention were our sponsors of Feeding Liverpool, the food alliance without whom these events would have been impossible to stage. Their long term strategies for a more equitable food system remain essential in our city at the current time and are the basis of the Liverpool Good Food Plan with one of their key goals to enable active food citizenship. We also owe our gratitude to the Liverpool City Council who continued to support and enable the series.
Moving the attention onto what farms in the UK are producing and how much of it actually lands on our plates Gerry now introduced our keynote speakers Chris Walsh and Helen Woodcock from Kindling Farm, who started a revolution in sustainable food production supported by a crowd-funding initiative in 2023. The two co-founders took it in turns to tell the story of how the Kindling Trust bought the 77 acre farm between Manchester and Liverpool with the help of 800 members. At the heart of their vision is to ‘value food, the land and the people who produce it. Sustainable food is seen as a right and not a privilege, and that there is equality throughout the food system.’
They aim to achieve this by working with organic principles feeding the soil and encouraging biodiversity. Helen and Chris shared their incredible knowledge of often invisible links in the food industry that often leave farmers struggling and the country heavily reliant on imports with biodiversity suffering in the process. In contrast they describe how their farming with nature approach leaves 25% of the land dedicated to wildlife. Their agroforestry project combines growing food trees with agriculture. They also talked about the value of food justice, community involvement and inclusion and shared the challenges and opportunities they have experienced. Their practice involves putting on events for school children as well as involving marginalised communities. Kindling Farm supplies veg boxes in Manchester and is planning to supply Liverpool in the future.
Showcasing another example of a successful local grassroots organisation Sally-Anne shared the inspirational story of how Homebaked Bakery brings meaningful change to the food landscape in their neighbourhood by not just being a hub, but also investing into the local community and sourcing all their produce locally.
Following this Dr. Jens Thomas pointed out how despite having a different approach Farm Urban is also trying to change the food landscape of the city with a focus in small scale production in urban spaces reducing food miles. This way of growing is centred on increased productivity with no pesticides and 90% less water use with small growing systems. As well as providing food, they follow an educational principle of engaging school children in being the pioneers of the future as well as encouraging local businesses in integrating green systems into workspaces.
Closing the showcase was Daniel Heffy, who described their mission of driving the local GSG Hospitality group in creating exciting food and drink venues in the city whilst working closely with local suppliers and using sustainable produce. Having started his education in the very venue in which the seminar was being hosted, he stressed the importance of training the next generation of chefs.
Following the presentations Lucy Antal, our speaker for the forthcoming third seminar kicked off the Q&A by asking about the speaker’s favourite vegetables and broke the ice for subsequent questions and comments. One of the questions giving people food for thought was who defines what ‘good food’ is. To help explore the answer to this question join us for the 3rd seminar titled: Food Home & Away – are we making the best decisions?.
Diana Heredia, Director of Engage and City Centre Resident