Voluntary Consumer Researcher

Voluntary Consumer Researchers needed in six regions across England

This is an exciting new opportunity to play a role in a national Mapping Local Food Webs project; the main part of Campaign To Protect Rural England’s (CPRE’s) work to protect the countryside through local foods.

We are looking for people with a passion and interest in local food to interview shoppers in the following towns and cities across England: Hastings, Totnes, Leicester, Sheffield, Kenilworth & Knutsford.  Volunteers will use a questionnaire prepared by Coventry University to build a picture of consumer attitudes, habits and knowledge in relation to local food.  This information will complement other surveys and questionnaires targeted at shop keepers,  farmers, growers and other local food producers in these areas.

The work is flexible in days and hours, we would like  to find people to help with this work between January 2009 and March 2009.

Suggested activities

The volunteer will assist a CPRE Regional Co-ordinator  working within their region with the following tasks:

·         Work with a team of local people to interview consumers 

·         Make decisions about where to carry out the questionnaire in your town or city

·         Keep in regular contact with volunteers working on other elements of the project and update the team on your progress

·         Be prepared to work in the fresh outdoors

·         Report back your findings to the regional coordinator and other teams within the project

Background

The Campaign to Protect Rural England exists to promote beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England by encouraging the sustainable use of land and other natural resources in town and country

The Mapping Local Food Webs project is a strand of the ‘Making Local Food Work’ programme, a collaborative partnership of organisations led by the Plunkett Foundation.  CPRE is leading the Mapping Local Food Webs project within the programme and will work in close collaboration with Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming

This project aims to give people the materials and support they need to ‘map’ – research and record - their local food networks or webs in their towns and cities across England.  The findings should increase understanding of the links between producers and consumers, and the impact those links have on people in urban and rural areas.

By finding out how local food webs work in individual towns and cities, this project will encouraging understanding of local food webs and promote support for local food production and better availability.

To really understand our local food webs we need to go out into your town or cities and ask consumers about their experience of local food.

Please send a CV and covering letter to the relevant regional coordinator listed below outlining relevant experiance and your interests.