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Growing Communities
Growing Communities is a social enterprise run by local people in Hackney, East London, which works to create a more sustainable food system through projects that provide practical alternatives to the damaging food system that currently exists.
Growing Communities projects:
- Growing Communities’ organic fruit and vegetable box scheme is your local box scheme if you live or work in Hackney, providing a delicious weekly selection of seasonal organic produce – from £6 per week. We are committed to cutting food miles and to supporting small sustainable farmers. We source as much local produce as possible: our salad bags are grown on our own Soil Association certified growing sites in Hackney, our potatoes and apples come from small farms in Kent and Essex and our oranges come from a cooperative in Italy. We never buy air-freighted produce. The scheme is collection only from five pick-ups points across Hackney.
- The Stoke Newington Farmers' Market - the first market in the UK where all the produce is organic or biodynamic and which works to support small environmentally sustainable farmers and producers based within a 100 miles of Hackney. It runs every Saturday and currently provides space for 14 farmers and producers to sell direct to the public.
- Urban Market Gardens – we grow organic vegetables on our three small Soil Association certified growing sites as part of our aim of increasing the amount of organic produce grown right here in Hackney. We specialise in mixed salad bags and are aiming to supply all the salad needs of the Box Scheme from our own sites. A team of volunteer workers helps us with this task and the food grown is sold through the Box Scheme. You are welcome to visit the sites and we can arrange school visits. We also have an eco-building at our Allens Gardens site which is available for hire.
- Growing Communities worked with other local community groups to plan and plant orchards at Butterfield Green and Springfield Park.
For more information about Growing Communities, see www.growingcommunities.org
