A JUST AND HEALTHY SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND DRINK SYSTEM IS TOP PRIORITY FOR THE FUTURE

A just and healthy and sustainable food and drink system is top priority for the future. Keynote speaker Sir Charles Godfray addresses the industry at the lectern of the 2023 City Food & Drink Lecture declaring: “If we fail on food, we fail on everything.” London Guildhall 15th May 2023.

Sir Charles Godfray, Director of Oxford Martin School urged more than 650 leaders in the food & drink industry to face up to the brutal realities of the “shifting challenges in building a just, healthy and sustainable food and drink system.’’ He posed the question of whether the current food system is resilient enough to feed the world whilst addressing both the health and environmental challenges impacting everyday life now.

During his 45-minute lecture, the keynote speaker of this year’s event, Sir Charles highlighted the hurdles that both industry and government need to tackle head on, including future population growth, the nature of global food demand and the need for more in-depth research on these issues.

Godfray declared he is ‘’more optimistic now than he was when he was a student’’ ‘‘if we take advantage of astute land management in the UK, we can produce more food and have more biodiversity’’, and being ‘’a small island, we do not have the luxury of allowing any piece of land to be unproductive’’. He went on to urge the government to be ‘’politically brave’’, with there being plenty of room for improvement when it comes to making sensible fiscal interventions, rather than ‘’knee-jerk reactions’’.

Chairman John Giles comments:

“One of the things that Sir Charles talked about was for the government to make brave decisions around the key issues relating to the development of the UK agri food and drink supply chain. Less than 24 hours later, the government announced a series of measures to support the UK agri food sector at the Food Summit that took place in London the day after our lecture. This only goes to show the currency and relevance of the discussion and debate held at this year’s City Food & Drink Lecture.

Giles went on to say, “This is to be welcomed, of course, but is probably just the start of a hard road if we are to truly develop a fair, just and sustainable supply chain as Sir Charles called for.”

The lecture also recognised the critical importance of the private sector. Referring to the increase in plant-based meat alternatives and their use in reducing carbon footprint, Sir Charles predicted that ‘’within 10-15 years, the vast majority of meat in products like patties and mince will go from meat to meat substitutes’’ driven by companies needing to be carbon-conscious. For people to willingly make this shift, Sir Charles stated that we must consume meat and dairy in a way that has a ‘’less judgmental narrative’’ and still be aware of people whose lives depend on livestock. The key here, Charles pointed out, is companies ‘‘being able to crack delivering meat substitutes that genuinely compete with that of livestock in quality and price – this is what will have significant impact on Co2 levels.’’

The panel discussion that followed Godfray’s lecture featured Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, Founder of The Black Farmer, Sue Davies, Head of Consumer Rights and Food Policy at Which? Sophie Lawrence, Stewardship and Engagement Lead at Rathbone Greenbank, and was chaired by Charlotte Smith, presenter on BBC1’s Countryfile and on Radio 4’s Farming Today.

Sue Davies from Which raised how research has shown that people are finding it ‘’much more difficult to eat healthy, let alone sustainably’’ with food price inflation on products like bread, cheese and oats rising by as much as 80%.

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones put forward his thoughts on consumers blaming manufacturers and supermarkets, with the opinion that ‘’we must take more responsibility for the decisions we personally make’’.

Sophie from Rathbone Greenbank Investments stated that:

‘‘Affordability is key. Studies have shown that calorie for calorie it’s 3 times more expensive to eat healthy so in a cost-of-living crisis, we need to be taking strong action on this issue’’.

The outgoing Chair of the City Food & Drink Lecture, John Giles, commented:

“There is so much happening in the world of agriculture, food and drink at the moment, in the UK and around global food security issues, how we go about feeding a global population of 9 billion, the impact of the war in the Ukraine, mitigating against climate change and of course the challenges all of these have on our diet and nutrition.

Sir Charles well and truly met the key objectives of the event, which is for everyone who attends to go away being much better informed on these massive forces for change in our respective sectors.”