Co-creating a shared vision for Hertfordshire’s food system
Food Futuring is a collective visioning project that brings together stakeholders from across Hertfordshire to co-create a shared vision for a healthy, fair and resilient local food system.
Why?
Food is life.
But the way we produce, sell and eat food in Hertfordshire doesn’t work for everyone.
Unhealthy diets. Rising costs. Hungry bellies. Unnecessary waste. Struggling farms. Dying soils. Poisoned rivers.
There are many amazing people already working on these challenges, but isolated efforts can only achieve incremental improvements. If we want systemic change, everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction.
That's why we need a shared vision for a better food system in Hertfordshire. A vision created by the people whose health, livelihoods and futures depend on it.
This project aims to create that vision together.
Our Process
Our collective visioning process involves a series of workshops, supported by online surveys.
Our workshop participant group aims to represent a broad cross-section of Hertfordshire’s food system — including farmers, landowners, community growers, restaurants, retailers, nutritionists, food banks, food rescue and redistribution, food support services, composters, campaigners, policy advisors, academics and local government.
Our online surveys bring the perspectives, ideas and priorities of the wider Hertfordshire community into our workshop conversations. We are using large-scale digital deliberation tools to gather and make sense of diverse perspectives at scale. This will enable us to find common ground across often polarising topics, and create a vision that truly represents the people.
Workshop 1:
Understanding the System
We bring stakeholders together to explore the existing strengths and systemic barriers in our current regional food system. This is a chance to share experiences for a more complete picture and identify opportunities for creating change.
This workshop took place on 16 February 2026.
Survey:
Crowdsourcing Ideas
We invite people across Hertfordshire to share their ideas on how we might create a healthy, fair and resilient local food system. We analyse the data for areas of agreement across opinion groups to find common ground on what changes people want to see.
This online conversation is now live! You can join in here.
Workshop 2:
Imagining the Future
We bring workshop participants back together to explore the survey results. We imagine this ideal future food system to give clarity on our desired outcome. Together, we outline our shared vision for the future, which is validated and refined through further online consultation.
Workshop 3:
Planning for Action
Workshop participants come back together to review the finalised vision and develop ideas for how we collaborate to make it a reality. We decide our next steps together, forming new projects and partnerships that target strategic leverage points to bring about systemic change.
PROJECT TEAM
Food Futuring is a research collaboration between the Institute for Creative Futures at Loughborough University London and Reimagine Everything. It is made possible by UKRI funding from the Ecological Citizen(s) Network+.
Dr Ida Telalbasic
Ida is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in Service Design Innovation at the Institute for Creative Futures, Loughborough University London. Ida brings her expertise in systemic design and strategy, ecosystem mapping, design methodology development, and resilience theory.
Hannah Lyons-Tsai
Hannah is a researcher and facilitator at Loughborough University London, specialising in transition design, regenerative approaches and practice-based innovation to address complex socio-technical challenges such as climate, food systems, and community-led innovation.
Tony Elkington
Tony is a St Albans-based participatory designer with a focus on place-based, community-led systems change through his organisation, Reimagine Everything. Tony brings to the team his experience in facilitating collective visioning processes as well as his network in various sectors across the Hertfordshire region.
PROJECT Partners
We are proud to be partnering with many Herfordshire-based organisations, and believe this could form the beginning of a better food partnership in the county. Partners will be added below as they choose to be formally named.
Soil Squad
Soil Squad is a St Albans-based Community Interest Company that transforms local food surplus into life-rich compost. Working across homes, businesses and schools, they deliver practical composting, food-growing and soil-health education that reconnects plant, human and planetary health, starting from the soil up.
The Cobbled Kitchen
A St Albans based cookery school with a difference. No recipes, just cobbling - teaching traditional and modern methods of making food go further for longer, cooking from scratch using creativity, instinct and improvisation, promoting sustainable, healthy eating which doesn't cost the Earth. All classes are designed around the particular culinary and dietary needs of each client.
New Greens Wild Garden
Established in the summer of 2024, a patch of council land is being transformed into a wildlife haven and source of perennial edibles for the local community. Using nature friendly gardening methods to showcase examples of plants, habitats and other features which serve to heal - the soil, biodiversity loss, body, mind and community cohesion.
