Skip to main content
Case Study:

Granville Community Kitchen Good Food Box

Good Food Box started is a vegetable box scheme run on a membership model with a set tiered pricing system.

Published: 16 January 2023
5 minute read

Good Food Box started October 2020, It is a vegetable box scheme (with an optional fruit addition) run on a membership model with a set tiered pricing system.

Situated at the Granville Centre, a historic, brick building in South Kilburn, London, it was also home to Merle’s Diner for 25 years. Merle herself started off at The Granville with £10 to feed the youth club downstairs, and was later hailed as "The Queen of Caribbean Cuisine", loved by locals and celebrities alike. When she hung up her apron, Granville Community Kitchen (GCK) followed in its place.

Encouraging organic growing and reducing food miles it’s potential climate and community impacts are significant, as suggested in it’s ‘reasons to buy form us’:

  • Our veg is super fresh. Buying direct from farms means our veg travels from the fields to your fork very quickly, usually within a couple of days for UK produce. This means it is fresher, tastes better, and is better for you.
  • Our tiered pricing system is radically re-imagining our food system, allowing us to think about and build community health (rather than focusing on the individual). We are aiming to reduce price as a barrier to organic food. We do this by keeping our costs down in all areas of our operations, and by setting our prices so that those who can afford to pay a little bit more, do so, so that those who need to pay less can still access fresh veg. This is a model grounded in solidarity rather than charity.
  • We accept Healthy Start Vounchers.
  • We offer culturally appropriate veg so that you can eat food which is good for your body, the planet and your soul.

Here, in one of the richest economies in the world, we have a growing number of people who can’t afford to put good food on their plates.

If the pandemic has shown us one thing, it’s that the health of communities can’t be pulled apart from the health of individuals. If we want to live in a healthy community with one another, we must design systems which can be accessed by all.

Leslie, co-founder
  • Most of our veg is organic and we source from as near to South Kilburn as possible. We pride ourselves on trying to produce a food system which is positive for the environment, rather than negative.
  • We’re creating jobs and providing opportunities for learning and knowledge exchange.
  • We try to support small scale farmers by paying a fair price and cutting out as many of the ‘middle men’ as possible so that farmers get a larger piece of the pie.
  • Local food means greater transparency. We will always tell you exactly where your veg has come from, so you always know exactly what you’re eating and where it has been grown.
  • We are a not-for-profit enterprise. Any surplus we make is reinvested to help us pursue our aim of offering food centred activities, services, education and training that is accessible, family friendly and open to all.
  • All of these things help us in working towards building a resilient community food system.

Local co-founders Dee Woods and Leslie Barson started with the aim of developing a vibrant community hub to promote the health, wellbeing and employability of the South Kilburn community. Cooking and eating, and growing food together was a way of bringing the community together, building resilience and repairing harms done to marginalised people. Dee believes “people have a right to a life of dignity and a right to food and nutrition”. She adds, “as long as we continue to conflate the issue of food waste with household insecurity, then not only are we supporting an industrial food system that is killing our planet (and us!), but we are complicit in the violation of human rights of millions of people.”

“As long as we continue to conflate the issue of food waste with household insecurity, then not only are we supporting an industrial food system that is killing our planet (and us!), but we are complicit in the violation of human rights of millions of people.”

Dee, Co-founder

The business model is described as a ‘solidarity’ model. It has High, Medium and Low costing tiers designed so that the higher tier subsidises the lower tier. For example a ‘small veg bag’, containing 6 types of veg costs £3.10 a week through to a ‘Family Veg box, with 11 types of veg in larger quantities’ carries a solidarity price of £91 per month. The latter is comparable to one of the ‘mainstream’ veg box providers.

This model is designed to break even at 250 customers with c. 60% being at the solidarity price. Currently the customer numbers are not at this level but they are building gradually.

The boxes / bags are put together weekly on a Wednesday and customers need to collect their veg from one of (currently) two collection points locally.

The solidarity customers can pay by direct debit.

Veg largely comes from Better Food Sheds, associated with the Open Food Network https://openfoodnetwork.org.uk.... There is an online platform associated with open food network which does offer sales, however the Granville operation is not yet able to offer the convenience factors offered by the more mainstream players such as home delivery, pausing and varying orders etc

An interesting aspect is the inclusion of a culturally appropriate foods option. The requirement to be organic is relaxed in this case. This reflects the black led roots of the initiative.

The Good Food Box is largely funded from The Roddick Foundation which currently funds the staffing and Granville Community Kitchen has had funding from Power to Change.

The Box scheme is staffed by a coordinator (20hrs), an outreach worker (12) hrs and general support from Centre staff and from a team of volunteer packers.

Impacts & values

Values of GCK are listed as

  • Dignity
  • Right to Food and Nutrition
  • Agroecology
  • Food Sovereignty

See here

Specifically relating to climate impact, food sovereignty demands that food systems are localised with short food supply chains. Agroecology requires that food is produced within the finite limits of our planet's resources protecting and respecting our environment and communities, and without compromising on the ability of future generations to provide for themselves.

One Good Food Box member subscribed to the box in January after noticing prices increasing. Another member who joined after her health crisis says: “The quality is amazing. I plan meals around whatever vegetables come in on Wednesdays, and then buy extras. It’s money saving, better for planning, cooking and spending. I find I buy less in the shops. This is crucial with the cost of living going through the roof for most of us." Beyond these economic considerations, it is likewise a celebration of community, food and joy. "My 91-year-old neighbour recently joined Good Food Box’ adds this member, ‘when I drop off her bag, she pulls out each vegetable with delight, calling her partner (and anyone else around!) to admire the produce."

As with many business ‘spin offs’ from community organisations, a conflict is felt between the business imperative – the need to focus 100% on making the business work – and the community/ social justice imperative. “Sometimes they pull us in different directions”.

There are challenges with capacity and space to develop the business, despite funding for some staff time. The coordinator is keen to see further development and support with promotion, business planning and social impact measurement.

Ideally the Good Food Box would expand potentially as part of a London wide Food Coop or similar network. There are a number of other similar schemes across London. For example, Kentish Town has c.300 members and there are other schemes at Sutton, and at Forty Hall in north London.

https://granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk/about/