Squaring The Circle: How To Repair The UK’s Broken Fresh Food Sector?

The publication of Liz Truss’s memoir has reminded us that the UK’s current economic struggles have been partly self-inflicted as well as impacted by global macro-dynamics. Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of lettuces in Truss’s book – the length of her tenure as PM was famously compared to the shelf life of an iceberg lettuce, and the lettuce won! However, joking aside, the UK’s fresh food eco-system, with its complex interrelations between consumers, retailers and growers/suppliers, has never been more challenged. Given the cost-of-living crisis, you might think that no one could criticise supermarkets for lowering the cost of fresh produce (Aldi’s Christmas offer of 1kg of carrots for 15p comes to mind), but most growers are struggling on wafer-thin margins and feel that the public needs to be gently led towards paying higher prices to create a fully sustainable food system.

The recent City Food & Drink Lecture at The Guildhall, with keynote speech from Simon Roberts, CEO at Sainsbury’s and a panel discussion with Simon and leaders from the NFU, The Food Foundation and New England Seafood, was hugely enlightening even if it did not necessarily offer a clear route forward. Indeed, it was suitably uncomfortable at times, as we heard about the shocking levels of food poverty in the UK and the relentless devaluation of fresh produce, with consumers paying £3.50 for a coffee and expecting to buy a whole chicken for the same price. There was also healthy debate about the level of supermarket profits and whether suppliers had been overzealous in their approach to recent price increases. One of the few points of agreement from the panel was around the current lack of government focus on food production and the need for more consistent and impactful policy for the sector.

Shifting the public mindset to fresh food is going to be of paramount importance in getting the commercial balance right. In the longer term, reintroducing stronger food education programmes in schools can help to drive change and, in the shorter term, removing ‘best before’ dates where possible on fresh produce is a step in the right direction for sustainability, also allowing the removal of unnecessary packaging on many items. Some products, like cucumbers, are already the subject of incredibly nuanced discussions on how we balance environmental concerns, food miles and waste. All of this, in turn, should provide savings for the sector in the long-term and allow prices to remain affordable for low-income families. But we all need to get comfortable with paying a little more for good food and with our fresh produce not staying as fresh – in the future, even the most inept of politicians should have no problem outlasting a lettuce!