Time to eat differently
British farming is under stress and it’s easy to see why. Get ready to pay much more for food but also to think and eat differently.
Longish read alert. TL;DR - change how you eat, everyone wins. Oh - and check the pics I’ve used.
I’m not a huge fan of The Daily Telegraph but this story suggesting we reflect on the dietary habits of the 1950s caught my attention. In essence it argues that our 2000’s eating habits are making us sick. A Just Eat, highly processed driven food intake contributes to a raft of health issues that didn’t exist 70 years ago. I agree. More to the point, I’d argue that our eating habits are contributing towards the demise of British farming.
I’m an unashamed foodie. I love good food, experimenting with techniques and food types because I have the time to do so. I’ve always cooked but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve taken over most cooking duties, largely because I had to radically change my food habits in the face of type 2 diabetes and heart problems. It’s a journey that’s led to many food adventures.
Like most people, my food shop cost has increased dramatically in the last six months. I’m especially conscious of staples like oil and flour that have shot up in price. Meat and fish prices are rising more quickly than vegetables. This story from The Guardian looks at the latest ONS findings among value supermarkets but, as is often the case, it only tells a part of the story.
When I cook, I think carefully about how I can use cuts to make bulk quantities for future use or make into alternative meals. I also think about how I can use veg combinations to make soups both hot and cold. Herbs and spices figure heavily in many recipes. The aim is to minimise waste. But there are limits and cost increases are unavoidable.
I could reduce my outlay by shopping for meat and fish at supermarkets but I don’t. Instead, I buy from local farmers and fish suppliers who practice provable, sustainable, regenerative methods. I’m in a minority. The prices I pay for these foods are well above those I would if I used the supermarkets. Many will say the prices I pay are premium and well beyond the reach of the average person. That’s true. But there are good reasons for doing so.
There is no doubt in my mind (or those who eat at my table) that the produce I get is of a quality that can’t be beaten by any supermarket brand. In addition, the value I get is way better which leads to LOWER overall food consumption. When something tastes great AND fills you, it’s perfectly possible to eat better and healthier while eating less. As a side benefit, it also means less clean up!
Equally, I try to only source vegetables that I know are in season and grown in the U.K. That’s something I learned when I lived in Europe. For example, you only find cherries in Spain around May-June each year. Beans of every kind are only in abundance in France during the summer months. In the U.K., it’s possible to buy pretty much any fruit and most vegetables at any time of the year. But, it will almost certainly be imported and inferior. Have you tasted English strawberries in May/June? Now compare with Peruvian imports in January.
On the other hand, the available fish choice in the U.K. has shrunk dramatically. I’ve no idea why except that much of what we used to see 30-40 years ago are/were exported to Europe. I have found suppliers that can get all the varieties I used to find when living in Europe. But it’s pricey.
Meanwhile, British farmers are under stress. We know about the rising costs of fertilisers and feedstuffs along with the lack of field workers. We know about the impact of the Ukrainian war on grain availability. But did you know that most available bread flour is a mixture of home grown and Canadian wheat flours and has been for many years?
The general message from the farming community is that unless there are wholesale changes then many, mostly small, producers will go out of business.
The reasons are complex and interrelated but can be distilled into a few readily understood broad topics:
Farmers have been supported by massive subsidies that are going away but that have not led to wide scale innovation in farming practices.
The farming dependency on fertilisers and feedstuffs is a consequence of needing to produce at higher scale while improving productivity.
Supermarket giants’ and food processors’ lock on farm gate prices have been a historical attempt to keep food prices low for the consumer. On average 16% of our average budget goes on food compared to around 30% 70 years ago. This hurts farmers whose incomes today are 20% below pre-pandemic levels while deluding consumers about the real cost of food production
Our food consumption habits have been shaped in many ways and I’d argue that the obsession with work before life that dominated mine and many other lives leaves little time to cook well. The market responded with a tsunami of ready meals at prices that seem good value but which are often heavily processed.
As consumers, we’ve been led down a road of globalised, exponential choice 365 days a year. How is that working when supply chains have been proven to be fragile and, how does that benefit the consumer in the long run?
In his latest newsletter, John Pallagi, CEO Farmison from where I get most of my meat argues that fragile supply chains bear a significant responsibility for the issues which face us:
With some notable exceptions, especially around food waste and delivery, there has been a dearth of new ideas for mass food supply. It is easy to forget that we made the systems that currently supply us with food, and we can just as easily reshape them if the will is there. Under pressure from above, the trend for many years has been supply chains and volumes getting bigger, and small farms struggling. The closure of small abattoirs up and down the country are just one example of how food supply chains have become standardised and bigger.
Palaggi goes on to note the difficulties faced by those attempting to innovate but believes we need a drains up approach:
This is going to take a holistic approach. Food supply needs farmers, climate experts, technology experts, and many more besides. In the face of climate change, not only do we need to be more self-sufficient, but we need to be eating a balanced, seasonal diet sourced from close to home. It's for this reason I believe the headlines should not be about the rises in the cost of food. Rather, they should be about how these prices expose our fragility, how they threaten the progress we’ve made, and if we do not urgently engage with these issues, that we are condemned to further instability.
I agree but extend Palaggi’s argument to include the consumer. As a child of the 50’s I don’t want to go back to that time but I do believe we can learn lessons from that time.
We can for example demand that our suppliers provide ‘wonky’ produce and massively reduce food process waste. An example is bread where 24 million pieces are lost EVERY DAY, because they don’t ‘fit’ supermarket packaging standards.
We can demand better quality that supports local producers which in turn helps build scale and helps keep prices affordable. What we cannot afford to do is sacrifice our well-being. In that context, I wonder whether ‘work from home’ that has, for some, become preferable to a commute, allows for the space to learn and relearn the joys of preparing meals from scratch.
I realise that these kinds of change are not easy when set against the pressure cooker world of today. Many of the folk who regularly enjoy my LinkedIn pics of whatever meal I’ve produced are in jobs that have a ‘24x7 always online’ element. I get it. I’ve been there. But equally I’ve found that with a little planning, it’s easy to make a nourishing and tasty meal from scratch inside 45 minutes.
For the more adventurous, home bread and bacon making is incredibly satisfying, cheap AND surprisingly quick in terms of expended effort. Making sausages takes a bit of effort but the possible varieties from basic and cheap meats is amazing.
There are benefits for those with children. I’m forever grateful to my mother for teaching me cooking basics at a time when spaghetti bolognese was a novelty and a roast side of beef a comparative luxury. I have fond memories of licking fingers that had scraped a cake mix bowl. And who cannot forget the magic of a well made Yorkshire pudding or toad in the hole.
For me, this is about setting examples of a mindset that puts health before wealth and where the rewards contribute to our general well being. Is that something for which it is worth paying a price albeit a higher one? I think so.
Adding that for those concerned about our environment, agriculture is the second biggest polluter by far after heavy industry, and that 'supply chain' delivery (aka centralized food production delivered in 18 wheelers to big box stores) burns a lot of diesel locally, while container ships have grown enormously in size to deliver those Peruvian strawberries.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/big-boats-are-ruining-everything
and airfreight may make sense to food supply oligarch bottom lines but not to the rest of the planet.
The French farming subsidies aka free ride that were at the heart of the original 'common market' have arguably metastasized across the entire EU over time, and here we are with food production relying increasingly heavily on subsidies to produce at scale, to the detriment of 'real' farming.
I'm writing this on the Hawaiian island of Kauai where the food in safeway/big save is processed junk but there is lots of amazing fresh fish and local produce, a microcosm of the UK in many ways...