2015 State of the Plate
Letter from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council
Since our founding in 2010, when the first Charlotte-Mecklenburg community food assessment was completed, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council has advocated for policies that build a sustainable, equitable, and healthy food system. The original community food assessment, often referred to as the “Food Desert Study,” provided stark statistics about the state of healthy food access in our county.
While the statistics aren’t always pleasant, they do have the impact of mobilizing a community to make important changes. No one wants to hear that 35% of Mecklenburg County households with kids faced food insecurity in the past year or that some parents have to make the difficult choice between food for their families or medicine for themselves. Numbers like these can be hard to hear but they can also galvanize people to take action and work together to improve our food system.
Since that first food study in 2010, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has seen mobile farmers market legislation passed, food pantries on college campuses opened, FoodCorps service members serving in high-poverty Charlotte- Mecklenburg Schools, the formation of the Fresh Look at School Food coalition to improve access to healthy food at school, the creation of the Piedmont Culinary Guild bringing together local chefs and farmers, and an overall increased awareness of the issues surrounding equitable food access.
With the release of the 2015 State of the Plate Community Food Assessment, we are so proud that not only do we have the facts and figures to further the work of our organization and countless others in Charlotte, but that this report also has an even more important component – the voice of the community.
As Mark Winne, community food systems advocate, said, “When it comes to how we assess a community’s food system, listening is the most important tool we have.”
The 2015 State of the Plate would not have been possible without the support of two very important sponsors: Wells Fargo, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. The breadth and depth of the work accomplished in 2015 happened because of the collaboration of many partners here in Charlotte and due to the tireless work of our two primary researchers, Victor Romano, EdD and Katherine Metzo, PhD. We are fortunate to have a very dedicated Board of Directors and Experts’ Panel who helped in so many ways to see this enormous undertaking to completion. We want to thank Johnson C. Smith University for their leadership, and our colleagues from Queens University, Winthrop University, and UNC Charlotte, as well as the dynamic team at the Mecklenburg County Health Department for their contributions to this project and their continued support going forward as we make even more improvements to increase healthy food access in our community.
The release of the 2015 State of the Plate report is truly just the beginning. We don’t have all the answers but we are excited to be leading the discussion and helping the community take action to build a more just food system in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
Erin Brighton, MPH, M.Ed.
Executive Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council
Since our founding in 2010, when the first Charlotte-Mecklenburg community food assessment was completed, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council has advocated for policies that build a sustainable, equitable, and healthy food system. The original community food assessment, often referred to as the “Food Desert Study,” provided stark statistics about the state of healthy food access in our county.
While the statistics aren’t always pleasant, they do have the impact of mobilizing a community to make important changes. No one wants to hear that 35% of Mecklenburg County households with kids faced food insecurity in the past year or that some parents have to make the difficult choice between food for their families or medicine for themselves. Numbers like these can be hard to hear but they can also galvanize people to take action and work together to improve our food system.
Since that first food study in 2010, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has seen mobile farmers market legislation passed, food pantries on college campuses opened, FoodCorps service members serving in high-poverty Charlotte- Mecklenburg Schools, the formation of the Fresh Look at School Food coalition to improve access to healthy food at school, the creation of the Piedmont Culinary Guild bringing together local chefs and farmers, and an overall increased awareness of the issues surrounding equitable food access.
With the release of the 2015 State of the Plate Community Food Assessment, we are so proud that not only do we have the facts and figures to further the work of our organization and countless others in Charlotte, but that this report also has an even more important component – the voice of the community.
As Mark Winne, community food systems advocate, said, “When it comes to how we assess a community’s food system, listening is the most important tool we have.”
The 2015 State of the Plate would not have been possible without the support of two very important sponsors: Wells Fargo, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. The breadth and depth of the work accomplished in 2015 happened because of the collaboration of many partners here in Charlotte and due to the tireless work of our two primary researchers, Victor Romano, EdD and Katherine Metzo, PhD. We are fortunate to have a very dedicated Board of Directors and Experts’ Panel who helped in so many ways to see this enormous undertaking to completion. We want to thank Johnson C. Smith University for their leadership, and our colleagues from Queens University, Winthrop University, and UNC Charlotte, as well as the dynamic team at the Mecklenburg County Health Department for their contributions to this project and their continued support going forward as we make even more improvements to increase healthy food access in our community.
The release of the 2015 State of the Plate report is truly just the beginning. We don’t have all the answers but we are excited to be leading the discussion and helping the community take action to build a more just food system in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
Erin Brighton, MPH, M.Ed.
Executive Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council
