The City of Charlottetown is soliciting input to create a map of food available in the capital area to help people get access to healthful food.

The local food asset map is an initiative of the Charlottetown Food Council working group, created in 2018 to identify and improve barriers to good, healthful food. The map aims to highlight the places where locally-produced foods can be accessed, grown, prepared, shared or bought.

"One of the outcomes from this will be to see kind of where there are some gaps in Charlottetown," said Jessica Brown, sustainability officer for the city of Charlottetown.

"More than that, it's actually about kind of applying more of a positive lens and showing people what assets they might have in their community that are already there that they don't know about."

The city has launched an online community food survey asking people what their needs and wants are, and also plans to host three public consultations in March and April.

What are the barriers?

"We've put together a good list of what we think are the assets but we think that members of the community, you know, need to put their input in so that we can get the full picture." said Brown.

The survey asks people who live and work in Charlottetown questions including what their barriers are to finding healthful food, whether it's transportation, cost, or other factors. It asks residents if they grow their own food, and where they purchase food — whether it's convenience stores, farmers markets or supermarkets, food delivery or restaurants.

"It is kind of about highlighting what we already have and raising awareness of the strengths in our community when it comes to food."

The mission of the Food Council is to examine the existing food system and take action to improve it.

The council previously brought forward a food charter that was passed by Charlottetown city council in 2019 to set guidelines covering all aspects of food in the city, including the promotion of local food production and procurement, improving food security, reducing food waste and using culinary assets in the community to connect locals and visitors with food.

In addition to being a public resource, Brown said the map may also be used by program and policy-makers to address gaps.

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