Written evidence submitted by Prof Erik Millstone[1], Prof Terry Marsden[2] and Prof Tim Lang[3] (COV0023)

April 29 2020

Q1: Have the measures announced by the Government to mitigate the disruptions to the food supply chain caused by the pandemic been proportionate, effective and timely?

In our view, much depends on who judges ‘proportionality’ and from which perspective. Proportionality to a large food company might not be proportionality to a food bank user. This submission takes a food system perspective, i.e. considering impacts from production to consumption, not just normal market dynamics but also emerging tensions for labour, health and society. We urge the Committee’s inquiry to ensure that there are views from ‘below’ as well as ‘above’ in both the food system and society.

Clearly, food supply has not been effective for everyone equally, nor have HM Government’s actions been wholly beneficial. There have been many disruptions and too many people on low incomes or lost incomes are suffering, not least from anxiety and broken patterns of already hand-to-mouth living. Universal Credit was already throwing too many people into financial difficulty.[1] Since early March, there have been discontinuities and much restructuring, yet an optimist could argue that by the end of April food was again flowing well. In fact, beneath a superficially benign surface, there have been many cracks and much unnecessary damage. Even at this early stage of a public health and economic crisis, which will last months and years, adverse consequences for the UK food system are likely to be significant. No sensible policy-maker would opine, as the Secretary of State for Defra is reported to have said, that food supply chain is functioning well.[2] If HM Government (HMG) is to deliver on its promise that ‘we are all in this together’, that means all. We wrote to Mr Eustice, Secretary of State at Defra and Mr Duncan Selbie, chief executive at Public Health England, urging that a multi-level focus on food planning be used rather than centralising power at the national level. 

There appears to have been no Food Plan. HMG actions bear the hallmarks of crisis management rather than following a well-prepared and rehearsed Food Plan. The UK ought to have been one of the best-prepared states on the planet for this coronavirus crisis. It had the advantage of (a) having run the Exercise Cygnus pandemic preparation in 2016,[3] (b) having faced concerns about no-deal Brexit impacts on the UK food system,[4] and (c) having had the Yellowhammer briefing[5]  about possible social consequences of supply disruption, plus (d) being warned about political consequences when Yellowhammer was ultimately disclosed.[6] 

Despite these opportunities to prepare, HMG’s food measures have been largely shaped by a reliance on a handful of large food retailers to resolve problems. Was this a formal plan or just a crisis response? We need to know. Whichever, the retailers were not prepared for the responsibility HMG threw at them, as was shown when their shelves were emptied when the enormity of the coronavirus crisis became clear in mid March and when HMG effectively closed down the food service sector.[7]  What did HM Government expect when it effectively told the public that they could not consume food out of the home as normal? And then, when the public switched to buying food from supermarkets, and clearing shelves, consumers were castigated for over-purchasing and panic-buying, and it was left to retailers to take the lead and speak directly to consumers. HMG actively contributed to this situation. It showed a failure to understand market dynamics or consumer psychology. 

The failure to plan properly is evidenced, too, by how the closure of the giant foodservice sector broke well-established farm, processing and wholesale supply chains, leading to waste (milk thrown away), affecting thousands of suppliers and jobs.  Pre-lockdown, approximately 30% of meals were being eaten out of the home. The food-to-go market was expected by the IGD to grow by 24% by 2024.[8] No longer. Analysts quickly calculated massive downturns in most foodservice niche sectors.[9] At a practical level, a 5 litre can of peeled tomatoes can be very useful in a large commercial kitchen, but cannot find a place on the shelves of retail grocers or domestic larders. The flour ‘shortage’ for home-baking use belied vast amounts of flour sitting in large sacks designed for catering use.

The idea that the supermarket chains can be relied upon to resolve all supply problems is over-optimistic.  The resilience of the UK’s ‘just-in-time’ supply logistics cannot be taken for granted. Besides armed or cyberwar disruptions, the UK food system is potentially vulnerable to several types of disrupters in the present kind of crisis.[10] These include problems with recruiting and retaining sufficient suitable skilled personnel, especially seasonal workers, because of Covid-19 epidemics in countries from which the UK imports foods, such as Italy and Spain, or from which it recruits seasonal workers, such as Poland and Bulgaria. UK-based citizens have been volunteering to work on the land, but only a small minority of applicants have accepted job offers. The failure to address labour planning for the entire UK food chain is among the starkest illustrations of a failure to plan properly. Already, farmers and growers have found that social distancing rules cannot be properly implemented by seasonal agricultural and food processing workers, unless ways of working and living in those sectors are radically changed. Food factories have been able to do this so far, as have retailers. Food service and land work are likely to remain the stumbling blocks.

Abattoirs are also heavily reliant on many non-UK citizens, especially for veterinary inspections pre- and post-slaughter.  Abattoirs are also facilities in which microbial infections can very readily be transmitted.[11] Food processing plants are also reliant on migrant labour, the mobility of which has been disrupted by Covid-19. Problems in the road haulage sector and ferries, including delays at intra-EU borders, are challenges.  HMG apparently took free flows and availability for granted. So far, UK retailers report the arrangements are working but will they be powerless to solve those problems if there are future shocks? 

Measures taken have not all been disastrous. Within a few weeks the retailers got their act together, and protected their staff, for example, in line with the 2-metre distancing rule. Food flows were better managed. Crowd handling improved. We also judge the decision to relax rules on the times at which lorries can deliver food to retailers as sensible. The decision to allow supermarket chains to coordinate their distribution of foods, however, excluded representatives of independent grocery stores. These are mostly community based, located close to where the population lives, and particularly important to the elderly and vulnerable.

Q2: Are the Government and food industry doing enough to support people to access sufficient healthy food; and are any groups not having their needs met? If not, what further steps should the Government and food industry take?

In a crisis as extreme as this, all the public must be well fed, not least since physical activity is being curtailed by radically changed living circumstances. HMG has not provided clear health messages for present times. Although people on low incomes are particularly at risk, the diet-related health profile of the UK already left much to be desired. The UK diet is characterised by excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods,[12] [13] obesity and overweight,[14] serious under-consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables.[15] Food poverty has been shown to have increased, especially since the start of the lock-down.[16]  People who are medically or/and economically vulnerable have been struggling most of all.  By the second week of April 2020 HMG had acknowledged that food banks were already playing an important role in providing a supply of some food to many vulnerable people, but some food banks have not been able to deal with demand, some because their elderly volunteers chose to accept official advice and retreat to their homes, but also because of a crisis in foodbank referral agencies at which vouchers for access to foodbanks were being allocated.[17] 

As far as ensuring that people have sufficient access to healthy food is concerned, HMG’s efforts remain as they were pre-pandemic.  The government spends very modestly on social marketing of public health messages, but beyond that allows diets to be determined by market forces, primarily the interactions between supply and demand.  Large supermarket chains have enormous influence on diets by their choices about what to stock, and how to price.  The major retail chains are sufficiently large and powerful that they have become price setters, while farmers, wholesalers, processers and consumers too are all price-takers. HMG should recognise that leaving the UK’s food supplies to the less than tender mercies of international markets is too risky.  HMG ought now to review its approach to food security. 

The immune systems of well-nourished people have greater resistance to viral infections, like Covid-19, than those whose diets are far removed from the official Eatwell Plate. As we wrote in our letter to Mr Eustice (Defra) and Mr Selbie (PHE), HMG should draw more systematically on the expertise of Public Health Nutritionists, consumer representatives,  and together with representatives of farming, food processing and retail sectors, try to ensure that sufficient healthy food is available and equitably distributed, with particular regard to the most medically and economically vulnerable.[18]

HMG’s approach to the UK’s food system has concentrated entirely on supply-side considerations, while neglecting demand-side factors especially consumers’ health.  On 28th April we received a response from DEFRA to our letter of 1st April, which merely asserted that: “We have a highly resilient food supply chain and representatives of our leading supermarkets are working to ensure people have the food and products they need.” [19]  Our response is to ask three questions. 1) Who is advising HMG on food? 2) Is there any nutritional input into food supply chain policies?  And 3) If not, why not?

Q3: What further impacts could the current pandemic have on the food supply chain, or individual elements of it, in the short to medium-term and what steps do industry, consumers and the Government need to take to mitigate them?

The UK’s food supply is comprised of complex mixtures of domestic production and imported foodstuffs. Before the present crisis, the UK imported about half of its food, mostly from EU Member States, and from countries with which the EU has trade agreements.[20] Supplies of both domestic production and imports could be undermined by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the crisis loomed, UK producers highlighted the challenges of finding sufficient labour to plant, pick, pack and process foods.[21] That crisis remains. HMG was repeatedly warned about this difficulty ever since it ended the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) in 2013 – in its then belief that the free labour market of the EU made it unnecessary - and then after the 2016 Brexit Referendum changed those assumptions only reluctantly and belatedly resuscitating a face-saving ‘pilot’ SAWS for just 2,500 people in 2018.[22] While it allowed a fourfold expansion to 10,000 in February 2020,[23] this is not a long-term answer. Nor are words of welcome to voluntary schemes such as Pick for Britain an adequate response to the structural nature of the food labour problem.[24] This is weak policy and further evidence of the lack of a decent Food Plan. Movement restrictions and migration controls are contributing to those problems. Covid-19 infections amongst potential workers could substantially aggravate supply problems. Most of the UK’s supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and salads come from Spain and Italy, and those countries are suffering with particularly high rates of Covid-19 infections and mortality.  

The UK’s food supply is also reliant on lorry drivers, maintenance engineers, and ferry operators.[25]  Infections rates amongst lorry drivers are currently modest, but maintenance engineers are being more severely affected.[26]  Ferry companies have highlighted their vulnerability to loss of income consequent on far lower levels of demand and mobility.  HMG should take the lead by convening meetings with all relevant stakeholders to identify challenges and potential solutions.  It should then ensure that relevant measures are adopted and their effectiveness monitored.

Q4: How effectively has the Government worked with businesses and NGOs to share information on disruptions to the supply chain and other problems, and to develop and implement solutions? How effectively have these actions been communicated to the public?

HMG has barely communicated to the public about food matters. We wrote to Mr Eustice and Mr Selbie urging better and higher profile messaging. The reply we received from Defra a month later was bland and unsatisfactory.[27] It stressed supply flows being sufficient, and – to quote “our leading supermarkets have asked customers to shop considerately and we echo their call” which illustrates HMG’s reliance on the large retailers. It then simply passed on nutrition adequacy to PHE – “Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for the health of the public and the effects of nutrition on our immune systems”.  Our point was and remains that nutrition and public health criteria ought to be shaping food supply and consumption.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 has barely four pages, out of hundreds, concerned with food. They simply centralise information in Government hands and are not helpful at all to ensure that HMG improves the match of food supply to health outcomes in these difficult times, let alone land use or environmental impacts (for which Defra is responsible).

HMG’s discussions with businesses and with business interest NGOs have been confidential, and little is known by outsiders about what was said and what is being done as there has been no open public communication on those matters.  Instead, ministers have spoken vaguely about their confidence in the adequacy and reliability of food supplies; ministers seem willing to assume that the large retailers can be relied upon to solve any problems that may arise.   While the senior executives of some retailers are comfortable with that approach, others think that the government ought to be far more actively engaged in trying to identify, and help solve, current and potential problems.  

HMG’s discussions with public interest NGOs have been confined to a small number of charitable organisations, and have primarily focussed on the provision of some food supplies to those who are especially vulnerable for medically and/or economic reasons.  

HMG has not engaged with leading public interest consumer and public health NGOs, and those organisations have not been provided with any information on disruptions to the supply chain, nor has their knowledge been sought or their input to help identify problems or to help develop solutions?  The potential benefits of communications between HMG and public interest consumer and public health NGOs have yet to be appreciated by HMG.

In conclusion, while we appreciate the extreme difficulties of the present situation, we urge the Committee to impress on HMG that this is the time to bring forward integrated food planning.

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