British farmers are warning they have been forced to throw millions of gallons of milk down the drain because it no longer has a buyer, cheesemakers are binning artisan cheese and meat processors have an overabundance of sirloin, rib-eye steaks and prime roasting joints.
Britain’s food supplies are set to come under increasing strain as lockdown is extended for at least another three weeks and could go on for much longer.
The problem is not that there is not enough food but that the well-established routes that supply it have been upended so abruptly.
the primary cause of empty supermarket was not inconsiderate stockpile hoarders, as some government ministers claimed, but the fact that a massive part of the food industry had been shut down overnight without a plan in place for how hundreds of millions of meals would be redirected.
In normal times, 35 per cent of the food we eat – around 70 million meals every day – is prepared outside our homes, by restaurants and caterers, in cafes and school canteens. Because restaurants’ needs are very different to those of people cooking at home, billions of pounds of produce was suddenly left without a buyer.
Redistributing a third of Britain’s food is an impossible task without full national co-ordination. For farmers, who cannot quickly change the crops they grow or the animals they rear to suit the new reality, the problems are building up.
Tim Lang, professor of food policy, at London’s City University, argues that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food system; a system which stretches out over thousands of miles, dozens of countries, and is reliant on migrant labour and air freight. That system has been reshaped, according to Professor Lang’s analysis, largely to suit the interests of nine companies which sell 90 per cent of the food we buy. Supermarkets have been happy to rely on sprawling supply chains that are left exposed during a crisis, as long as the price is right and the product sells.
As a nation, we import half of our food from abroad and, according to some analysts, the true figure could be as high as 80 per cent. Known as “the Hungry Gap” which stretches from the end of the winter season and the start of the summer in late May or sometimes even early June. Historically, it is the leanest part of the year for Britons, when the carrots, onions, potatoes and swede stored through the winter have run out but asparagus – the first sign of summer, in vegetable terms at least – has not yet fully grown. For several decades now, it is the period when we are most reliant on imported food. This year the countries we source much of our food from, notably Spain and Italy, experience their own problems getting enough labour onto farms and seeds in the ground.
"Coronavirus has really highlighted the vulnerability of our current food system and that’s only going to get worse,” says Ashley Wheeler, a small-holder, who points to delays planting crops in Southern Europe that could lead to problems in a few months.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the Covid-19 pandemic will cause shortages of some crops this year. In that scenario, producer countries are likely to prioritise their home markets over exports, increasing the onus on British producers to supply this country’s needs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coronavirus-lockdown-uk-food-supplies-strain-supermarkets-a9469476.html
Britain’s food supplies are set to come under increasing strain as lockdown is extended for at least another three weeks and could go on for much longer.
The problem is not that there is not enough food but that the well-established routes that supply it have been upended so abruptly.
the primary cause of empty supermarket was not inconsiderate stockpile hoarders, as some government ministers claimed, but the fact that a massive part of the food industry had been shut down overnight without a plan in place for how hundreds of millions of meals would be redirected.
In normal times, 35 per cent of the food we eat – around 70 million meals every day – is prepared outside our homes, by restaurants and caterers, in cafes and school canteens. Because restaurants’ needs are very different to those of people cooking at home, billions of pounds of produce was suddenly left without a buyer.
Redistributing a third of Britain’s food is an impossible task without full national co-ordination. For farmers, who cannot quickly change the crops they grow or the animals they rear to suit the new reality, the problems are building up.
Tim Lang, professor of food policy, at London’s City University, argues that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food system; a system which stretches out over thousands of miles, dozens of countries, and is reliant on migrant labour and air freight. That system has been reshaped, according to Professor Lang’s analysis, largely to suit the interests of nine companies which sell 90 per cent of the food we buy. Supermarkets have been happy to rely on sprawling supply chains that are left exposed during a crisis, as long as the price is right and the product sells.
As a nation, we import half of our food from abroad and, according to some analysts, the true figure could be as high as 80 per cent. Known as “the Hungry Gap” which stretches from the end of the winter season and the start of the summer in late May or sometimes even early June. Historically, it is the leanest part of the year for Britons, when the carrots, onions, potatoes and swede stored through the winter have run out but asparagus – the first sign of summer, in vegetable terms at least – has not yet fully grown. For several decades now, it is the period when we are most reliant on imported food. This year the countries we source much of our food from, notably Spain and Italy, experience their own problems getting enough labour onto farms and seeds in the ground.
"Coronavirus has really highlighted the vulnerability of our current food system and that’s only going to get worse,” says Ashley Wheeler, a small-holder, who points to delays planting crops in Southern Europe that could lead to problems in a few months.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the Covid-19 pandemic will cause shortages of some crops this year. In that scenario, producer countries are likely to prioritise their home markets over exports, increasing the onus on British producers to supply this country’s needs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coronavirus-lockdown-uk-food-supplies-strain-supermarkets-a9469476.html
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