Urban food planning and management in Melbourne: current challenges and practical insights

Over the last decades, local governments have begun to develop urban food planning instruments focused on improving public health and environmental sustainability, but shortcomings still exist. This paper builds on the case of the Melbourne Metropolitan Region (Australia) to elaborate on how urban food planning and management can address the challenges exposed by a systemic approach. Challenges include strengthening local food economies, developing a nexus between the urban environment, public health, and sustainability, and the circular management of food production resources. Our study contributes to urban food planning and management practice by identifying how policy instruments have successfully addressed these key challenges, and existing inconsistencies between policies and planning. Furthermore, policies should go beyond incentives for urban gardens and explore new areas of intervention, including integrating local producers and retailers into urban food planning, prioritizing fresh food commercialization over ultra-processed products, and integrating composting into waste management.