Introduction

The food system, the means by which food is produced, distributed and consumed, has for centuries shaped our cities and the way we live within them (Steel, 2009). Today, we have witnessed a growing interest in the food system, its interconnections and concern for its outcomes (cutting across health, economic, ecological, cultural and political issues), on both global and local scales. This has resulted in continued challenges to the capitalist industrial agri-food system that has dominated the late 20th and early 21st centuries (often referred to as the ‘conventional’ food system). This is happening at the same time as greater pressure is being placed on cities as they attempt to meet the demands and needs of their ever changing populations. Consequently, cities and their governance arrangements are at the very heart of the ‘new food equation’ (Morgan and Sonnino, 2010), as a complex array of individuals and organisations interact to challenge the pressures and problems that they perceive should be addressed if a more just food system is to be achieved.

This chapter is about ‘food justice’, broadly how different aspects of social and environmental justice interrelate with food. For those new to the topic, Gibb and Wittman provide a helpful summary and characterise food justice as ‘ensuring that food system benefits and burdens are shared fairly; ensuring equal opportunities to participate in food system governance and decision making; and ensuring that diverse perspectives and the ways of knowing about the food system are recognised and respected’ (Gibb and Wittman, 2013: 3).

This chapter is also about food justice and the city, in particular, our focus is on the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England to complement the other contributions to this edited volume. This adds to the growing literature on food justice and translates the concept into a British context.

The chapter is organised as follows. In the first section we explore the concept of food justice in more depth and critically review published literature from interdisciplinary food studies authors and food activists, drawing primarily on the foundational North American sources. We focus particularly on how food justice has emerged as an organising concept for contemporary society, and the explicit political debates that have informed the term's development and its adoption. As such, food justice has the potential to capture a range of issues within its remit.