Food Nation 2040: the Food Strategy process needs Government leadership

On 23 September, the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) announced Food Nation 2040, which it describes as a prioritised framework of action to advance delivery of the outcomes in the Government's Good Food Cycle. IGD says it will act as convenor, working with industry partners and with government, and that a first proposal will be made public this autumn.

Few in the Sustain alliance would dispute that the food system needs action more than it needs further diagnosis. On that, IGD's chief executive Sarah Bradbury is right. We have just seen the summer pass without the long-promised Defra action plan emerging, and it is into that gap that Food Nation 2040 has stepped. But the way it has emerged raises serious questions about who is setting the direction for food policy in England, and on whose terms.

Three accounts, no official statement

Anyone trying to understand what Food Nation 2040 actually is has had to piece it together from trade press reports and LinkedIn posts. The only Government statement has come in response to journalists' questions, prompted by earlier reporting that Defra has since contradicted. It has been a confusing picture for everyone.

The Grocer reported that Defra had asked IGD to oversee the rollout of the next phase of the Food Strategy. Writing in The Grocer, Sarah Bradbury described Food Nation 2040 as “the next stage in a journey” and the result of IGD's work with Defra. Then a Defra spokesperson told Footprint that this is “not IGD leading on the food strategy or the next phase of it”, but an industry-led framework that IGD had offered to produce, which was presented to the Food Strategy Advisory Board on 14 September. The meeting was chaired by the Minister, Stephen Morgan, and attended by the Secretary of State, Angela Eagle.

At the time of writing, there has been no ministerial statement and no published terms of reference. The only official record is a single paragraph in the Board's minutes. For a Government strategy that affects everyone's health, livelihoods and environment, that is not good enough. If Food Nation 2040 is not the next phase of the Food Strategy, the Government should say so officially, and tell us what is.

Shaped without civil society

According to IGD, the first proposal has been informed by discussion with senior leaders in the food and drink industry, Defra and the Food Strategy Advisory Board. Civil society is not on that list. The Board does include the leaders of a small number of charities, and their contribution is valuable. But they sit on it in an individual capacity, not as representatives of civil society, and civil society was never asked who should speak for it. The Board's own minutes say that effective engagement with civil society will be key. So far, that engagement has not happened.

The Food Strategy Alliances are Eating Better, Sustain, the Obesity Health Alliance, Wildlife and Countryside Link, and the Plant-based Food Alliance UK. Between us, we represent over 200 civil society organisations working across health, animal welfare, conservation, food production, trade unions, farming and social justice. We have sought to engage constructively with the Food Strategy process throughout, setting out shared recommendations to the Government and meeting ministers to press for clearer routes for civil society engagement. None of our alliances was approached about this work. We first learned of it from the Advisory Board's minutes over the summer, and then from the trade press.

IGD says Food Nation 2040 will involve civil society organisations and community voices, and that the first proposal is a framework for discussion, not a final solution. We welcome that. But being invited to respond to a draft that others have shaped is not the same as shaping the priorities. That is the test Food Nation 2040 has yet to meet.

Who sets the priorities?

We take IGD to be acting in good faith, with the constructive aim of moving things forward. But an industry-led framework cannot speak for the whole food industry, let alone the wider public interest. Food businesses have real knowledge of supply chains and of what works in practice, and they should be closely involved in delivery. But the Food Strategy's objectives, priorities and policy choices must be set by the Government, in the public interest. That matters most where commercial interests pull against health and environmental goals, which in food they often do.

The language around Food Nation 2040 tells its own story. IGD wants to turn the evidence into “a smaller number of clear priorities” that can be “actioned at pace”, and the Board's minutes record strong advice to prioritise areas where action could be taken quickly. Pace matters. But narrowing priorities for speed raises an obvious question: what gets left out, and who decides? The quickest wins are rarely the hardest problems, and priorities chosen with the businesses whose practices may need to change are likely to be the ones that ask least of them. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy worked because the Government set the terms, not because industry volunteered them.

Those harder problems are often the ones that need regulation and legislation, which no industry framework can deliver. That is why we continue to call for a Good Food Bill.

There is a question of roles, too. IGD acts as joint secretariat, with Defra, to the Food Strategy Advisory Board: the same Board to which its own Food Nation 2040 proposal was presented. If the process is to command confidence, how IGD separates those roles needs to be clear and open.

What we have asked for

The Food Strategy Alliances have written to Stephen Morgan, Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, asking Defra to set out publicly, before IGD's proposal is published:

• the status of Food Nation 2040 as an industry proposal, how the Government and the Food Strategy Advisory Board will consider it, and the respective roles of Defra, IGD and the Board;

• the Government's own plans for the next phase of the Food Strategy process, led by Defra across government, with DHSC on health; and
• safeguards to ensure that commercial interests do not determine or dilute decisions made in the public interest, including how industry proposals will be weighed against other evidence and perspectives.

We have also asked Defra to establish clear and consistent routes for civil society engagement throughout the next phase of the Food Strategy, and requested a meeting with the Minister.

We have written separately to Sarah Bradbury at IGD, asking to meet before the first proposal is published. We want to understand how civil society input will be able to help shape its priorities, who has been involved so far, how IGD separates its role on the Advisory Board from convening Food Nation 2040, and how the work will draw on the expertise of existing alliances.

A contribution, not the next phase

The recent announcement of almost £10 million for 45 of England's most deprived communities, developed with civil society, shows what ministerial leadership can achieve. That same leadership is now needed to develop a Food Strategy that delivers on all its intended outcomes. Sustain and our partners in the Food Strategy Alliances, together representing over 200 organisations, want to see that Food Strategy developed, and we stand ready to support the Government in leading it. Food Nation 2040 could be a significant contribution to the next phase of the Food Strategy process. It cannot be the next phase itself, and it cannot stand in for Government leadership, transparent governance and a real say for the organisations working in the public interest.

We will share updates as we hear back from Defra and IGD.