Brenda Black

Brenda Black (she/her)

Director

Working Groups

GCFN HR

Expertise and Interests

Brenda is a founding director of Glasgow Community Food Network and a Healthcare Professions Council Registered Dietitian with a Diploma in Advanced Food Hygiene. She is CEO of Edinburgh Community Food, the Chair of the Edible Edinburgh Health Group, and a trustee of Edinburgh Community Health Forum.

She joined Edinburgh Community Food in Autumn 2019, a short period before the first UK COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. Rather than furlough staff and close the shutters, she engaged with the local communities, the city council and government, resulting in the charity becoming a lead organisation in providing emergency support to people in desperate need of food across Edinburgh throughout the pandemic and beyond. This experience has cemented her reputation as a highly-respected key member of Edinburgh’s – and Scotland’s – community food programmes and community networks.

Brenda sits on the Scottish Government’s Community Food Reference group and advisory boards and is a leading figure advocating for the development of equitable and sustainable food systems. She heads the team developing the new Edinburgh Food Network – ‘Menu for All - Joining Food and Support Access Edinburgh’ – with the aim of ‘Ending Poverty-Related Hunger in Edinburgh,’ launched in October 2023.

Brenda worked in the commercial retail sector for 25 years before retraining in human nutrition and dietetics at Glasgow Caledonian University and working in NHS acute services, homelessness charity Emmaus and the Community Football Foundation Erasmus project. She has specific experience and knowledge in supporting nutritionally vulnerable groups in homelessness, addictions, food poverty and health inequality.