The National Food Futures Conference was held on the 16-17^th of March by the Public Health Association of Australia. This event brought public health professionals, researchers, government officials and other stakeholders together to share the work being completed to create a healthier food system in Australia.

ALPA’s nutrition efforts were represented across three presentations at the conference. Our Health and Nutrition Manager, Khia De Silva, presented on how Aboriginal-owned stores are creating a pathway for health-enabling food retail. In her presentation she highlighted the structures required for instituting research evidence into policy and practice – the key structure being leadership. The ALPA Board of Directors have made nutrition one of their priorities since the 1980s, the Board’s commitment and leadership in this area flows down through the ALPA business, making nutrition everyone’s responsibility.  

Dr Julie Brimblecombe presented the feasibility and effectiveness of ALPA’s Healthy Stores 2020 strategy from the perspective of ALPA Store Manager’s. Store Managers play a critical role in implementing health-enabling programs. We thank all the ALPA Store Managers who participated in the interviews for this project. Their insights will help other researchers and practitioners who are trying to develop successful healthy retailing programs. 

Finally, Dr Meaghan Christian presented on how an online training enhanced the capacity of Public Health Nutritionists to work with remote community stores to improve health. The ALPA Nutrition Team assisted in the development and delivery of this course. Thirty-two health professionals participated in the 8-week course which included topics focused on fruit and vegetables, healthy takeaway, and sugar-reduction strategies. 94% of participants agreed the course increased their understanding of the remote food environment and the majority stated they planned to put this knowledge into practice.

ALPA are proud to share our nutrition stories with others so they can join us on this journey to create healthy retail environments. You can find the abstracts for each presentation here: https://www.foodfutures2022.com/_files/ugd/a52314_b1f0fc9295464ae7b722d3a1d5808848.pdf