25/11/2025
We really have been doing this For a long time. We cohosted the Landworkers' Alliance annual gathering in collaboration with our friends at The Tin Music and Arts. Please do get involved with Food Union, not just the gigs and the workshops we’d love more people to join us at the weekly sessions and support our micro circular economy. Both Greg and Marc are professional food growers so can guide you if you are a novice but also are very ready to learn.
Food Union Makes Alliance
Last week the national union Landworkers' Alliance staged a unique AGM at two local venues in Coventry. Conjoined by the Canal basin bridge, The Tin Music and Arts and The Pod, collaborated in hosting the event.
The Landworkers’ Alliance is a UK union of small-scale producers and family farmers who use sustainable methods to produce food.
facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance
Earlier this year, The Pod launched two citywide social activism programs – Time Union and Food Union, and their involvement in the LWA AGM is a particularly important step in the program’s development.
facebook.com/foodunionista
Food Union exists to create conversation and action around food. In Coventry alone, 60,000 people live below the bread-line, while across the world our natural systems are on the verge of collapse due to industrial farming. Food Union intends to be an impulse for change and was created to seek out solutions which build and strengthen communities.
The forum was held at The Tin, while meals were prepared and served at The Pod.
Since Food Union’s launch last November, it has enjoyed a heady and ubiquitous year. It first secured an allotment site in Hillfields, quickly establishing it as community garden, and with the support and nurture of members and the local community, it has yielded fresh produce all year round.
The garden’s upkeep inspires a major social aspect too, having doubled up as a unique stage for arts events such as music and poetry performances as well as summer barbeques and special seasonal events such as the inaugural apple day and sessions focused on harvesting and sewing specific crops.
The Pod’s own Revive café has played host to weekly café takeovers every Thursday, whereby Food Union members and partnering projects can prepare and cook food using produce from the allotment, local independent markets and even intercepted food waste following a successful and very tasty takeover by The Real Junk Food Project. These café Takeovers have become a very popular fixture and a leading site for innovative action and discussion about food.
Food Union is also a founder member of the Coventry Food Justice Network, has partnered with over 30 organisations. It has also staged expert tutorials ranging from chutney, jam and bread making through to composting workshops.
Chris Maughn, Food Union Development Worker said:
“This event was an alliance in every sense of the word, set in motion very simply by thoughtful communication and neighbourly spirit. It was a very exciting, mutual transfusion of activity, arts and activism and I hope The Pod and our projects such as Food Union can become a frequent and key component of future events.”
Christine Eade, manager at The Pod said:
The event combined local and national organisations, adding extra value and dimension to this year’s LWA AGM and proved to be an effective and illuminating format for the exchange of conversation, ideas, perspectives and awareness, pushing important topical issues, campaigns, research and programs into focus. The collaboration between The Tin and The Pod revealed a deeper depiction of the city’s efforts to support issues around food, wellbeing and livelihood, not only networking the LWA members with one another but folding in a distinct local conscience too."
