Speciality-Food-Magazine-March-2025

44 @specialityfood opportunity by imports. That is the conundrum that we face today. There is a very real risk here – we’re producing high end niche products here because we’ve legislated for higher standards, but we haven’t protected ourselves against lower standard imports. And so at the moment we are drawing in Thai, Brazilian and Polish poultry. That doesn’t solve any of the world’s problems, it just means that we’re not producing it here. British farmers don’t even necessarily need to be protected, we just need a level playing field. Consumers hold the power Of course, for a time this all shut down during the pandemic but, in my view, domestic farmers filled the gaps too quickly. If there had been a pause, and people were faced with empty shelves, they would have recognised the importance of what British farmers do and the struggles we face. for granted – I don’t think they have recognised the vulnerability of our just-in-time supply chain. Longer term, that’s a real concern. Unless we fundamentally change our consumption habits we’re either going to displace the environment here in this country or we’re going to have our externalities based overseas. It’ll be out of sight, out of mind, but unless we actually reduce that intensity we will never, ever get to a point where we solve the world’s problems. I’ve got no issues reducing farming’s impact – if we then have the same expectations of our imports. But at the moment, we don’t want our import policy to match our domestic standards of production, so I don’t see how you can have a conversation about a food system which is incredibly complex. If it needs to change, it needs to change in a fair and balanced way, but you can’t bring about that change while you’re being undermined at every But it’s difficult to get to that nuanced approach around how we actually solve climate change. Everybody pays their role in that, and when I talk about the intensity of consumption it’s a matter of the impact of consumers on climate change through the food systems we have in place. It’s empowering – we all need to own that and ask how can we reduce our impact and what is our role in working with farmers to reduce that impact. Is it about eating more seasonally and not consuming food that’s shipped in and has a carbon footprint attached to it? Is it about eating less and better meat? Unfortunately, we live in a society where people are unlikely to stop taking flights in order to reduce their environmental impact, but they can choose to support British farmers. Each decision we make around what and how we consume has an impact. These choices should be active rather than subliminal, but what I’m focusing on here is probably 10% of society who are in the luxury position where they can make those choices – meanwhile, 90% are focused on how they can buy food as cheaply as possible. They don’t feel able to make those decisions, and then it becomes a story of affordability. This is really problematic if it’s a question of your lifestyle choices dictating your impact on the planet. It is an incredibly complex system, but the best support fine food retailers can do is to promote shopping locally and seasonally. Connecting consumers with the stories behind the food they stock is invaluable to the farming industry. S peciality Food ’s readership is doing a lot of good in terms of supporting local farming and the rural community which is at its heart. There are a lot of farms that are offering direct sales to the public, and there is no better way for the public to directly support farmers than to be shopping locally. We’ve all seen the headlines about how one in two farm shops is worried about what their future looks like as a result of the NI increases, which are going to prove very challenging. I don’t think there’s any ability for a lot to absorb that, which means that they’re going to have to pass it on to the consumer – then it’s a question of whether their customers are willing to cover the increased costs. Today’s shoppers buy into convenience, and the only way that direct supply would ever disrupt the retail sector is to compete with them in terms of convenience and online retail. But we’re never going to be cost competitive because we will never drive the volumes that sector demands, so I believe that direct supply will always be a niche – even if consumers buy into the story of where their food comes from. We have strayed so far from the average consumer understanding this. Our society is generally time- poor and financially stretched, and not everybody can afford to buy into localism either because of time or money constraints, and that is the ultimate challenge. If we end up in a period where consumers have a better understanding of what healthy food looks like and the impacts of diet on their long-term health, then we may get to a period where more people want to be cooking from scratch using locally grown ingredients. During the Covid-19 pandemic we saw a bit of a reconnection – people didn’t want to go to the big retailers because of the risk of infection, and they felt much safer going to their local farm shop. It’s amazing how much it changed behaviour, but we need more. Jack Bobo, a food system scientist at Nottingham University who spoke at our conference, said that if people won’t change their consumption habits of food for their own health, why do we expect them to change their consumption habits to save the planet? It’s such a rational comment, but it spells out how big the challenges that we face are. Support British farming I worry that the Government completely takes our food resilience Each decision we make around what and howwe consume has an impact “Farmshops are invaluable” Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, on the power of Speciality Food retailers to inspire change