This has allowed the organisation to communicate important food issues to more networks and wider communities, from schools to supermarkets, through the power of face-to-face conversations or social media. 

FSA Voices has been a great vehicle for promoting FSA’s core messages about food we can trust. Everything we’ve done from Our Food Futures (OFF) Conference, to Food Safety Week, to FSA’s high-profile BurgerVSteak campaign, has been promoted by our advocates who helped us cut through the noise, with an authentic voice on food issues. 

Here are just some of the success stories:

• Gathering together 200 leading experts to talk about the best food outcome for people in the UK at our Our Food Futures conference earlier this year;
• Helping the OFF conference be Thunderclapped by close to 1 million people and be seen by over 6,000 people online;
• Promoting #OurFoodFuture and making this the 3rd highest trending topic on Twitter in the UK and our Twitter posts being shared over 29,000 times which reached about 4 million people and; 
• Encouraging over 50 members of staff to post selfies during the #wheresthesticker campaign. This helped us reach a potential 13 million people through social media and encouraged them to look for Food Hygiene Rating stickers when eating out.

Aside from our FSA Voices talking out loud, it’s also been about listening. So far, our voices have given us an extra 300 set of ears. We’ve had lots of examples of how our Voices have helped to inform people or bust some popular myths.

In true advocacy spirit, our FSA Voices have also given up their free time to pass on our knowledge and expertise. This includes equipping community groups and schools with relevant tools, to the FSA Voices community supporting each other by sharing stories, asking for advice and generating new ideas through a dedicated group on Yammer.

Catherine Brown, Chief Executive of the FSA and an FSA Voice herself said, “Food is probably the most essential and valuable resource we have. Without our advocates, we wouldn’t have reached as many of our key audiences, we wouldn’t have engaged as many citizens and we wouldn’t have been as successful in achieving the strategic objectives of our organisation.”

Jeremy Heywood, the Head of the Civil Service, also commented on the FSA’s use of social media thanks to FSA Voices, “The Food Standards Agency’s effective use of digital channels such as Twitter sets a standard that all government organisations should aim to meet.”

Going ahead, we look forward to keeping the momentum going and building on the fantastic work which our advocates do. You may hear from an FSA Voice sooner than you think, so please do keep an eye and an ear out and spread the word.