Reference guide, shared with Camden in July 2026. This is a distillation of a guide Dark Matter Labs built for the Camden Food Partnership and its Catalyst group, drawing on the Kauffman Foundation's ecosystem-building work and on best practice from Sustain and the Sustainable Food Places network of over 100 UK local food partnerships. It sets out options, not a recommendation: the right choice depends on what the Partnership wants to do next.
Working draft, published October 2026The Camden Food Partnership has grown quickly since it formed in 2020, gaining Sustainable Food Places network membership in 2024 and a Steering Group bringing together over 60 member organisations. As partnerships mature, most reach a point where the informal arrangements that got them started no longer fit the scale of what they're doing. This guide sets out the main options for how CFP could be organised and led going forward, drawing on two bodies of practice: the Kauffman Foundation's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Playbook, and Sustain and Sustainable Food Places' own documentation of how peer partnerships such as Brighton & Hove, Lambeth, Plymouth, Lewisham and Bristol have organised themselves.
This guide does not recommend a single answer: the right choice depends on what the Partnership wants to do next, how much risk and funding it expects to hold, and how its members want to be represented.
CFP currently operates as a partnership rather than a stand-alone legal entity. Since 2022, the local charity FEAST has coordinated it in partnership with Camden Council, steered by a Steering Group with agreed Terms of Reference that meets roughly every eight weeks, alongside working groups delivering the action plan.
The Kauffman Playbook is explicit that ecosystem building "is about process, not product; context, not content," and that the strongest local coalitions are built on sustained relationships rather than formal infrastructure. Three of its design principles are directly useful for CFP's decision:
In practice, this means CFP's decision is really two separate, sequential questions: (A) who leads and hosts the Partnership day-to-day, and (B) if it becomes independent, what legal form it should take. The rest of this guide takes each in turn.
SFP's experience across its network is that food partnerships are led and hosted successfully under several different arrangements, and there is no single right answer — but SFP is consistent that active, ongoing support from the local authority is essential under any model, since councils hold much of the procurement, planning, public health and licensing power needed to shift a local food system.
The Partnership sits formally within the Council (e.g. Public Health or a community team), with Council officers coordinating it directly.
An existing local charity or community organisation employs the coordinator and manages the budget on the Partnership's behalf — the model CFP already uses with FEAST. Good Food Lewisham (hosted by Lewisham Local) and Nourish Hub in Hammersmith & Fulham (delivered by charity UKHarvest with Council co-funding) are comparable London examples.
The Partnership incorporates in its own right — the path taken by Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, Lambeth Food Partnership, Good Food Oxford and Food Plymouth as they matured.
Sustain notes that most independent food partnerships did not start this way — they typically began as an informal or hosted partnership and incorporated once their funding, staffing or risk profile had grown enough to justify it. This mirrors CFP's own trajectory: an unincorporated, hosted arrangement now, with independence as one possible future step rather than an immediate necessity.
If and when CFP (or its Steering Group) decides to become a freestanding organisation, Sustain's guidance for food partnerships sets out six broad options. None is objectively "best" — the right choice depends on whether the Partnership will employ staff, hold property, take on financial risk, and how it wants funders and members to see it.
As with any legal or financial decision, CFP should take independent professional advice before committing to a structure; the summary below is for orientation, not a substitute for that advice.
| Structure | Best suited to | Key trade-off | Example food partnerships |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unincorporated association | A partnership with no paid staff, no property, and low financial risk, that wants a simple membership structure | No separate legal identity — members are personally liable, and it cannot hold contracts or property in its own name | Wells Food Network; Cambridge Sustainable Food (early stage) |
| Company limited by guarantee | A partnership that employs staff, holds contracts, or expects to take on financial risk | More reporting: annual accounts and Companies House filings; costs more to run than staying unincorporated | Brighton & Hove Food Partnership; Lambeth Food Partnership; Liverpool Food People |
| Community Interest Company (CIC) | A partnership that wants to badge itself clearly as a social enterprise, may want to pay board members, and expects to hold assets or take on risk | Cannot also register as a charity; pays tax on profits; some funders avoid CICs | Bristol Food Network CIC; Food Plymouth CIC |
| Charity (unincorporated or as a company) | A partnership whose aims are exclusively charitable (e.g. relief of poverty, advancement of health) and wants access to charitable grants and tax reliefs | The Charity Commission has rejected some food partnerships whose objects include promoting local food businesses, as this is not a charitable purpose | Several SFP members have applied; success has depended on how charitable objects are framed |
| Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) | A partnership that wants charity status and a separate legal identity, without the extra Companies House reporting a charitable company requires | If the organisation ever stops being charitable it must close, unlike a charitable company, which can continue as a non-charity | Brighton & Hove Food Partnership has explored moving to this structure |
| Industrial & Provident / Community Benefit Society | A partnership wanting a democratic, member-owned structure, potentially raising funds by issuing community shares | More costly to register; regulated separately from Companies House | Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency (hosts Good Food Greenwich) |
A general pattern across the network: partnerships that will not employ staff, hold property, or take on financial risk tend to stay unincorporated for simplicity; those that grow into employing a coordinator or delivery team, or want to hold multi-year grants and contracts directly, tend to incorporate — most often as a company limited by guarantee, sometimes adding charitable or CIC status once their objects and funding needs are clearer.
Whichever hosting and legal options CFP chooses, SFP's experience points to a small number of governance features that tend to make partnerships effective:
The following questions, drawn from both frameworks, can help the Steering Group decide whether and when to change CFP's current hosting or legal arrangement:
Is CFP being offered — or likely to seek — grants or contracts that require a legal entity, or that are too large or long-term for a hosted arrangement to manage comfortably?
Does CFP need to employ people directly, rather than through FEAST or another host, in order to secure the roles it needs?
Do members feel the Partnership needs a more clearly independent identity, separate from any single host organisation, to be credible with funders or residents?
Can the Steering Group realistically recruit and support a formal governing board, with the added reporting and legal duties that a company, CIC or charity involves?
Whatever option is chosen, does it preserve active, senior-level Council support and involvement — which every source consulted for this guide treats as essential to a food partnership's influence, regardless of hosting model?
