The Cost of Food

The Food Programme

Hosted by Sheila Dillon at the Abergavenny Food Festival, this episode brings together journalists, policy experts, and hospitality leaders to dissect why UK food prices

Key takeaways

• Dan Saladino reveals that UK farmers receive only about 8% of the final food pound despite bearing all production risks, while commodity speculators and fertilizer giants have profited heavily from geopolitical disruptions like the Ukraine war.
• Vicki Hird points out that 65% of UK fruit and vegetables are imported, leaving the supply chain highly vulnerable to climate shocks, Brexit border friction, and long-distance freight cost spikes.

Main topics

• UK food price inflation and consumer affordability
• Supply chain complexity and import dependency

Notable quotes

"The food pound has gone up, but farmers' proportion of it remains about 8 % over the last 10 years. So they get 8 % taking all the risks that they take working with nature."

Conclusion

The episode concludes that while the current food system is deeply flawed and heavily extractive, targeted public

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Speaker 2 (0:09) Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:39) Hello and welcome to the Dome Tent here at the Abergavenny Food Festival. We are here to explore a question affecting us all. Why does the cost of food keep going up? And what can we do to create a better food system for us all? Which might seem a bit of a downer question as we gather in Abergavenny at a festival that's all about celebrating food, its pleasures, how it brings us together, creates jobs, keeps communities going. But exploring food as we do on the food program is a way to understand the world, a way to find out who's calling the shots. And that's the plan today. Over the last few years, the price of food has increased sharply and prices are still on the way up. Food in the UK... now costs about 40 % more than it did at the start of 2021. So what cost £10 five years ago now costs around £14. And wages, it seems, have not kept pace with that rise. At the same time, farmers, growers and food businesses tell us that they are under enormous pressure from rising costs. Healthier, i.e. real food, remains nearly twice as expensive per calorie. as the ultra-processed stuff and the gaps widening. So how did we get here? Who's making money because someone is? And who's struggling? Is food actually too cheap in some ways and too expensive in others? And to discuss all that, we have you and we have our remarkable panel. First, my longtime colleague at the Food Programme, Dan Saladino. Dan has won many awards for his journalism as well as for his remarkable book, Eating to Extinction. And he tells me, though I find this hard to believe, that he's been working on the food programme for 20 years. We've been colleagues that long. First of all, reporting and then presenting the food programme, travelling around the UK and the world, investigating the questions we're asking today. Vicky Hurd is a campaigner, author and one of the UK's most influential food policy experts. She co-founded Sustain, the Alliance for Better Food and Farming, working on agriculture and supply chains, food justice and sustainability. She's now the strategic lead on agriculture at the Wildlife Trusts. And how we produce food in a way that's fair for people, farmers and the natural world is what's at the heart of Vicky's work. And finally, Simon Wright. Simon has spent more than 30 years, is that right? Speaker 7 (3:19) Yeah. 30 years Speaker 5 (3:23) working in food and hospitality in Wales. Speaker 2 (3:26) He's a Speaker 5 (3:27) food writer, broadcaster, and one of Wales' leading voices on how we produce food in a way that doesn't destroy the world, especially how to do that locally. Simon is also co-owner with his wife Marianne of the much lauded Wright's Food Emporium in Carmarthenshire. Now he's bringing all his experience to bear on his new role, putting together a national food strategy for Wales. So please welcome Dan, Vicky and Simon. Speaker 5 (4:03) So first, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the questions with the panel, let's have a show of hands. How many people here think that food is now too expensive? That's interesting. It's quite a small percentage, relatively, of this big crowd. And how many people think that farmers are being paid enough for the food they produce? Speaker 5 (4:28) I don't see a raised hand here. Well, that is the dilemma we have. So how do we build something that's fairer for everyone and more resilient? To the panel, what do you think that most people most misunderstand about the price of food? Simon. I Speaker 7 (4:48) think, first of all, we have to realise that it's not just the price of food. It's the price of rent and utilities as well. So it's pressure on... the overall budget. So we have to see it in that context. I think there is a question about how we define food, because if we say food is the thing that gives us fuel to lead an active life into our older years and is the determinant of longevity, then some of the things we call food isn't doing that job. And the analogy I would use here is like if there was a garage down the road selling petrol at half price, there'd be... long queues down the street but when people realised it was only taking quarter of the distance they wouldn't go there again and I think we don't think about food in that way but misunderstanding is one way of putting it but then you could say lack of transparency lack of ability to afford that food and lack of access. Speaker 4 (5:43) Vicky? I would agree with everything that Simon was saying that the transparency and the marketing of food I think people also think farmers get a large proportion although this audience is probably very aware of the low level that farmers get I think a lot of people still think of the subsidies farmers getting lots of subsidies and having fancy tractors that has changed dramatically but the reality is farmers have got ever tiny amounts of the food pound. The food pound has gone up, but farmers' proportion of it remains about 8 % over the last 10 years. So they get 8 % taking all the risks that they take working with nature. And the other thing, I think they're probably misunderstood in thinking food is safe. And we know absolutely now that it is not safe. It's catastrophically harming. the very life systems we depend on, the soil, the water, the natural predators, the worms and so on. So I think there's lots of misunderstandings because people are so distant from where the food is produced. Dan, what do you think? I Speaker 5 (6:40) think Speaker 6 (6:40) linked to that, most of us don't realise how interconnected and how complex the food system is behind all of that. And I think whether it's the pandemic or Ukraine or the current geopolitics, each time a crisis comes along, it reveals a tiny bit more about that. complexity and the interconnectedness. So the rise of trading hubs in Dubai, for example, having an impact on food prices in the UK. And we don't get to see that. And these are the stories we try and tell on the food programme. But I think it's important to understand how interconnected those factors are, the geopolitics, in order for us to come up with some solutions of how to address food price inflation. Speaker 5 (7:23) Absolutely. I mean, as you say, closing the Strait of Hormuz revealed things even food journalists didn't know very much about. Before we start talking about the causes of all this, trying to untangle them, let's hear what impact the current cost of food is having one of the groups most vulnerable to high prices. You're going to hear Timmy. He's 19 and he works with the youth food campaign group Bite Back. Speaker 1 (7:52) Me and my friends all noticed it actually first hit school food prices. Prices of sandwiches were going up from £1.70 to £1.90 to £2.10. The money that we had didn't change, which means we either have to get cheaper options, which will be desserts, the cookies, the doughnuts or the waffles, or on a day we just simply won't eat. And that often is what happened. We would go after school. So the chicken and chip shop, which would sell two wings and chips for a pound or even a pound 25 when that went up. We've seen it across supermarkets and things as well. But some of the things that have somehow remained fairly cheap and constant is the junk food. But things like fruits and vegetables, the prices of that have skyrocketed from a point where I can remember my family, we actually did buy fruits fairly often. Today... that has dropped a lot because the price of fruits have just increased so much that it's just unaffordable, along with all the other essentials that we need in the house. A lot of the time, me and my friends, when we're eating out, we'll go for the cheaper junk food outlets because that's cheaper. There was recently a KFC that opened near me and we were just walking along. the street and they approached us and were giving us a leaflet with like vouchers with deals on them. £1.99 for some chicken and chips and things like that. And I guess all of that when we're really on a budget will influence our decision because we need to eat but it's sort of what's available and what we can afford. Speaker 5 (9:34) Timmy from BiteBank. Does any of what he said resonate with people in the audience. Could you raise your hand? Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:43) My name is Jane and I'm a secondary school teacher. I teach food and I've worked with Bite Back and what he describes is what I see on a daily basis. Whatever you do with your free school meals, the change in the regulations coming down the line at the moment will make a difference. But as much as I do in my classrooms to try and educate and expose, that price point doesn't change and their family price point doesn't change. That's my only experience of it. Speaker 5 (10:09) Thank Speaker 3 (10:09) you. Speaker 5 (10:10) Well, let's go to the panel's reaction. Dan, you know about buyback. Speaker 6 (10:14) Yeah, I think one thing that it's important to consider with food price inflation is not only the impact on household incomes and spending on food per household. It's thinking about the direction of travel in food policy. So for many years now, various governments have been trying to implement food policies. to increase the quality of food and improve diets. For example, the nutrient profiling model that is applied to products in stores, which determines when and how they can be advertised. That's taken almost a decade to implement, partly because of lobbying from the industry. And what you're hearing now from the retailers and the likes of the Food and Drink Federation, which represent some of the biggest manufacturers in the UK, is a resistance to implement further regulations. And there's a revised so-called nutrient profiling model that we're anticipating. But the pushback now because of food price inflation is saying now is not the time to try and tighten the regulations and the restrictions on advertising of unhealthy foods. So it's not just about what's happening in the household, it's the entire food policy of the UK that's being shaped by these pressures. Speaker 5 (11:32) It's very hard to see those pressures. Do Speaker 4 (11:35) you