Ian Smith

Sustainable Food Advocate

Ian is one of the core team members of Food Plymouth, the City-Region’s pioneering cross-sector local sustainable food partnership and network.  He joined Food Plymouth in 2011, leading on the partnership’s education, learning and skills work and contributing to the evidence-based paper The Future of Food in Plymouth 2014-2031.  Nowadays Ian serves as one of the founder-directors of Food Plymouth Community Interest Company which provides the partnership and network’s infrastructure support.  

Having been heavily involved in Food Plymouth’s COVID-19 response, Ian is particularly interested in opportunities to improve the supply of and demand for fresh, local, sustainable, healthy and affordable produce in the post-pandemic landscape.  In this vein, he is one of the founders of Sustenance Partners, an innovative collaboration working to strengthen the local food economy.  Ian is also actively involved in the Devon Doughnut Collective which is seeking to apply the sustainable development principles of doughnut economics locally.  

Ian’s sustainable food work sits within a wider portfolio of education, community regeneration and social enterprise activities.