Food
- This review looks at best available evidence relating to food poverty, what it is, what its scale is likely to be in
Bristol, and what impact it has. The aim is to provide sound evidence for the Welfare Reform Board, the Food
Policy Council and others, in order to inform policy recommendations. - Food poverty is the inability to afford, or to have access to, food to make up a healthy diet. It is about the
quality of food as well as quantity. It is not just about hunger, but also about being appropriately nourished to
attain and maintain health.
- The causes of food poverty are complex and multiple and include the following factors;
financial – relating to income and to the price of locally available healthy food
social – relating to cultural norms, skills, social networks, and the impact of marketing of unhealthy foods
physical – relating to access to shops and cafes selling affordable healthy food, to cooking facilities, to
transport. - This evidence review concludes that there is inescapable evidence that for many people, including families
with children, there is a gap between available income and the actual cost of securing a nutritious diet. - The Minimum Income Research Programme, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, identified that the
income necessary for an acceptable standard of living in the UK in 2012 as judged by panels of ordinary
people, was £16,400 pre-tax per year for a single person and £18,400 pre-tax per year each for 2 parents with 2
children. - The UK Low Income Diet and Nutrition Survey commissioned by the Food Standards Agency reveals that low
income households have diets that are deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables, deficient in iron folate and
vitamin D and high in sugar and saturated fats. Over a third of the low income families reported that they could
not afford balanced meals. - The Defra Family Food Survey found clear evidence that affordability of a nutritious diet has worsened
between 2007 and 2011. Poorer households spend proportionately more of their income on food, and are
choosing highly processed and high fat foods of poor nutritional quality in order to save money. - Prices charged for healthy food are higher in small convenience shops compared with in large supermarkets.
People on low incomes, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups like travellers, homeless, asylum seekers and
some black and minority ethnic groups may be more likely to be reliant on small local shops where choice and
affordability is limited. - In Bristol there are 22,145 children living in poverty according to the most up to date figures from the
Department for Work and Pensions 24% of Bristol schoolchildren are claiming free school meals. - Numbers of people using emergency support (food banks) in Bristol rose from around 2,600 in 2011/12 to at
least 7,600 people in 2012/13, and may rise to 13,000 people in 2013/14.
Planning failures and financial cuts are being exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world of food, too, planning is needed both to deal with short-term emergencies and to address longer-term risks.
At the outset, the immediate task was to ensure people would get fed when economies went into lockdown. Lessons will be learned from how each country has dealt with supply and nutrition. In rich countries, they have learned just how dependent food supply is and was on migrant labour. As governments focus on national political responsibilities, the otherwise normal flow of labour to farms, factories and stores has been disrupted.
The UK experienced at least two years of a threatened no-deal Brexit, which exposed the need for crisis preparations. But the coronavirus pandemic quickly showed that there was still no formal UK food plan other than the government’s belief that big retailers “will sort it”, as one insider told us.
The food system was already in trouble, facing climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable diets. The lack of a formal plan is neither good governance, nor without risks.
Depending on the supermarkets
A de facto muddling-through has emerged, one that is concentrating on existing market power rather than tailoring supply to public need. A fully-fledged food plan is needed now and will be even more so in the coming months and years. Until there is a vaccine, the threat of the virus will dominate lives and economies. The need for a stable food supply and healthy consumption, however, will remain constant even when this ends.
A prime example of the UK’s muddled thinking in the absence of planning is how the government closed down almost all of the UK’s food service sector as its first food act. Superficially, this seemed sensible, designed to prevent cafes and restaurants becoming disease hot spots.
Today, we have entered the pandemic once more with dire diet-related ill health. Whereas in the 1930s, the UK’s food problem was mostly hunger, now it is a surreal combination of over-, mal- and under-consumption.
With prospects of long-term economic harm looming today, the UK should be planning improvements to the food system. We must avoid the danger of the government failing to create a resilient food supply in the good times, then expecting the public to pay for the crisis in the recession ahead. Now is the time to plan a properly resilient, secure and equitable food system.