Our Food Network

Food resilience is essential to any healthy community.

Our Food Network, Dunedin is an organisation that believes in an integrated, accessible, and collaborative approach to ensure Ōtepoti neighbourhoods have what they need in order to nurture this resilience. There is so much work happening around this beautiful city in terms of localising food. OFN is simply helping to connect the dots.

OFN started as an informal group in 2012 by organising a food forum in Dunedin. In 2018 it became an independent Incorporated Society.

Our Values

OFN is open to anyone with any kind of interest in local food. It encourages informed debate about the many issues concerning local food provision in our communities.
OFN is dedicated to providing positive and practical responses to the multiple challenges we face in the twenty-first century. A strong local food system is essential to our continued well-being in an increasingly uncertain world.
OFN strives to promote community action as the basis for a resilient society.
All people have the right to decide what they eat and everyone should have access to healthy, culturally appropriate food that is locally produced.

Our Objectives

To facilitate communication and coordination of local food related activities amongst network members and liaise with other local food networks in Aotearoa and around the world.
To provide mechanisms for individuals, organisations and businesses to share information, ideas and resources to build a strong, collaborative, local food network.
To support food producers of all kinds and scale by helping to break down any barriers to increasing the quantity, quality and diversity of local food products.
To engage with authorities at both regional and national level on issues relating to the sustainable production, processing and distribution of local food.
To ensure that we all have access to the knowledge we need to grow, process, store - and value – the food we consume.
To support agencies working to ensure equitable access to food.
To encourage the study of all aspects of our local food system and make the findings of those studies available to the wider community.
To celebrate the production, distribution and consumption of local food and promote or endorse events which enhance our local food culture.
To increase the significance of local food in our regional economy by promoting the interests of businesses (new and existing) involved in the production or distribution of local food on a commercial basis.
To promote conscious participation in the local food system by producers, processors and consumers by encouraging and advertising activities such as positive food procurement practices, redistribution of excess food and easy identification of local food products.

OFN’s Food Resilience Cooperation Pledge

OFN recognises that the philosophical, economic, and political motives for localising food production in Dunedin are diverse and is working to genuinely acknowledge these individual differences as collective strength.

One way of doing this is through our “Cooperation Pledge” which helps us to include diverse voices in Hui and initiatives relating to food resilience in Ōtepoti.

Take a look at the Pledge

Meet the OFN Commitee

Robyn Zink

CHAIRPERSON
One of Robyn's favourite places is in her vegetable garden. The ability to grow and have access to good quality, local food is central to building resilient communities. Creating strong and sustainable local food systems requires the community working together with creative and positive energy. Robyn is excited to be part of this process.
Sean Connelly

Sean is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography at the University of Otago. He teaches environmental management papers and conducts research on food systems, energy and sustainable communities. He writes a regular column in the ODT on food and sustainability Seeds of Change https://www.odt.co.nz/tag/seeds-for-change
Reiko Kurihara

TREASURER
Reiko is from Tokyo, Japan, and has a background in programme management in the humanitarian assistance sector. She and family arrived in Dunedin in mid-2022 to live on Otago Peninsula with an aim to create a food forest.
Jennie Upton

Jennie is passionate about community resilience - learning to live within the boundaries of the planet. Knowing how to grow your own food is a vital part of this resilience - nothing tastes better than a freshly picked salad or a piece of fruit straight off the tree. Jennie is currently an Enviroschools Facilitator supporting both primary and secondary schools on their sustainability journey.
Karena Garratt

Karena has background in logistics and volunteer management. She found her love for food rescue while working at a food bank and rescue group in Michigan USA. She is passionate about helping others and getting food otherwise wasted to those who need it most.
Sue Novell

Sue Novell is interested in food resilience and sustainable local food production in response to global overshoot and climate change. She is a keen food forest gardener, the newsletter editor for the Dunedin Vegetable Growers Club, a member of the leadership team for Seniors Climate Action Network and coordinator of the Musselburgh Heart and Soil School and Community Garden.
Rebecca Perez

Rebecca grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the US, and began growing food as an apprentice on organic farms in the United States in Maine, Washington, and Oregon, and has been an organic, small-scale market gardener in Southland and Otago. She loves growing and preserving tomatoes more than anything. She works as the operations coordinator at Village Agrarians, an organisation seeking to lower barriers for local food production.
Tom McKinlay

Kei te noho ahau kei raro i te mana o Kapukataumahaka, ki te taha hoki o Pukehaukea. He Tangata Tiriti ahau. Ko Tom McKinlay tōku ingoa. I also garden under the korowai of Kapukataumahaka, Mt Cargill, at the Northeast Valley Community Garden.