How local producers were helped by Covid-19

Oddly, the pandemic has delivered a shot in the arm to the local food movement in the UK – a trend to be encouraged and supported, Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Defra Secretary George Eustice

DEAR George My view on shopping is roughly akin to my attitude towards dental treatment: I know it has to be done but don’t ask me to enjoy it.

By ‘shopping’ I refer, of course, to the process of traipsing around a supermarket in search of the week’s supply of comestibles – as opposed to rummaging around in an agricultural merchant’s premises, which I do find rather fun.

But I have been somewhat intrigued by the findings of the recent National Food Strategy Survey in that they display a real shift in our food shopping patterns stemming from the rigours of the various lockdowns.

I was particularly bucked to read that more than 90 per cent of farmbased retailers say they have registered a distinct uplift in business, and that so many have moved to ‘click and collect’ services and home deliveries.

This all bears out what I had observed as our old friend panic buying set in and cleared the supermarket shelves of so many items. The reaction of thousands of consumers was to turn to independent and local suppliers whose shorter food chains were less susceptible to disruption or even rupture.

The net result has been probably the biggest collective switch to that still-tiny fraction of the market controlled by independents since that time when the supermarkets were caught flogging beefburgers bulked out with the remains of nags which had come a cropper at Becher’s second time round.

I am raising this issue because of what I believe to be a real need to support local, sustainable food production in the forthcoming White Paper.

Far too few people have easy access to local food, particularly in the large conurbations. There was a time a few years back when the local food movement was in the ascendant that supermarkets sought to offer shelf space to local, regional producers – not through any spirit of altruism (c’mon, these are supermarkets we are talking about) but because they could see a pound or two in it.

Sadly that trend has petered out, largely because of the disparity of scale: relatively few producers were able to supply in large enough volumes to suit the multiples’ trading matrix and those that did found the terms so onerous and the prices cut so ruthlessly low that it was wellnigh impossible to make a decent (if any) profit.

I’m delighted, however, that steady growth is continuing in the demand for local food. Not only do consumers get better quality and value for money, they can buy in the full confidence of knowing where their food comes from, how it is produced and by whom.

Short supply chains and far lower haulage costs also mean better returns for everyone along the line.

If we can find some way of stimulating the sector further then it should be through the creation and supporting of regional food marketing

groups such as the one that operates so successfully in the South West, combined with development grants to enable producers to sell to a wider audience, either through transporting their goods to market or through enhanced online selling.

If you care to listen, George, everyone now raves about the quality of British food and drink – I take it you are aware Raymond Blanc has become chief ambassador for English apples – and will be looking to us to do far more to promote its consumption, rather than devoting ourselves quite so assiduously to the business of attracting inferior imports.

Yours ever

Ian

Raymond Blanc has become chief ambassador for English apples