Food is Infrastructure

Food banks were never meant to be a permanent fixture. Yet, in the UK, they have morphed into an informal infrastructure - a sticking plaster left on so long it has become normalised. Government data now shows that 2.9 million emergency food parcels were distributed in 2024/25 alone. Insecure work and rising costs have forced 30% of users in working households to use food banks.

This is not a success of the heart. It is a failure of the system, and its urban governance.

We must treat food with the same weight as roads, rail, or housing. It is the essential civic backbone. For Movimento Metropolitano, this rethink finds its reference point in the ‘15-Minute City’ by Carlos Moreno. This isn’t about urban planning; it’s about how we live in metropolitan spaces. At the heart of this model is food.

A ‘15-Minute City’ means having access to fresh food, neighbourhood markets, and tables where people can gather. It means mending the broken link between the person who grows the food and the person who eats it. We have to move past the ‘emergency’ mindset.

Movimento Metropolitano does things differently. We believe in the civic food economy: real people, real food. We work with local partners, small producers, and artisans to put high-quality produce back where it belongs. We aren’t fighting the supermarkets; we are simply walking around them. We shorten the chain. We keep the investment on our doorsteps.

A city that understands its food is a city that can look after itself. When we talk about ‘food democracy’, we are also talking about who has a seat at the table i.e. who has access to what, where it’s produced, how it’s distributed, and which gastronomic cultures have space in our cities. We create spaces for everyone. When we move knowledge from the textbook to the plate, a community does more than feed itself, it finds its own roots.

This is not a dream; it is practical urban policy. By backing local makers and artisans who share our goals, we replace the quick fix with something that lasts. For our metropolitan communities, the quality of life depends on the quality of food we can reach and celebrate together.

Cities that eat together and plan together are the ones that endure. Food is the catalyst.The system is broken; we all know this. The only question left is whether we are ready to step up. We are.

Follow the journey @movimentometropolitano.