Cross sector letter demands urgent introduction of a Good Food Bill

The letter has been signed by food industry giants including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Waitrose, Co-op, Booths, Greencore, Samworth Brothers, Bidfood and Danone, charities including Barnardo’s, Amnesty International UK and WWF-UK, investment companies including Rathbones and The First Thirty Ventures, farming organisations including Soil Association and Nature Friendly Farming Network and health organisations including Action on Salt and Sugar and the World Cancer Research Fund International.

The UK's food system has suffered repeated shocks in recent years. Farmers and growers face rising costs and increasing pressure from climate change and nature loss. International conflict has pushed fertiliser costs up by around 40% since last year, while more frequent extreme weather events are making harvests increasingly vulnerable. Earlier this year, the Government's own National Security Assessment concluded that global biodiversity loss poses a direct threat to the UK's food supply. Together, these pressures are contributing to higher food prices, which are forecast to be 50% higher this November than at the start of the cost of living crisis. 

And this week as we see wildfires raging across Europe and geopolitics remaining on a knife edge, the fragility of the UK food system is increasingly obvious. That vulnerability, alongside diet-related disease being at record highs, is now of clear concern to the public, business leaders, charities, health experts and farmers alike. The letter calls on the new Prime Minister to ensure the food system becomes a national priority, alongside energy and defence.

Here’s what some of our signatories have to say… 

Tesco UK CEO Ashwin Prasad said:  "We believe every child should have the opportunity to grow up healthy and thrive, and we are proud to support the Good Food Bill and its ambition to create a long-term legal framework that helps ensure children and future generations can access healthy food and lifestyles. 
  
"The Good Food Bill has the potential to provide the accountability and long-term commitment needed to drive meaningful change, and by working together across government, business and communities, we can shape a food system that genuinely supports healthier futures for generations to come." 

Simon Roberts, Chief Executive at Sainsbury’s, said: “Recent weeks have shown just how much pressure our food system is under. We need a more resilient food system that attracts investment, backs British farmers and helps keep affordable, nutritious food on tables across the nation. Food and farming should be at the heart of government policy, helping to build a stronger and more resilient future. That’s why we’ve signed the Good Food Bill. Through working together to drive the change we need across government, industry and communities, we can make sure everyone has access to good food for years to come.” 

Nigel Murray, CEO, Booths, said, "At Booths, we believe everyone should have access to good food, and that starts with a resilient food system that supports both customers and the farmers who produce it. The Good Food Bill is an opportunity to take a longer-term view of food security, strengthen British agriculture and help ensure that healthy, affordable food remains within reach for future generations." 

Andrew Selley, CEO Bidfood said, “As a foodservice wholesaler, we’re all too familiar with the risks and challenges of resilient food supply, from our network of UK fruit and vegetable growers who are dealing firsthand with all the challenges outlined in this letter, to the price increases that are experienced by both our public and private sector customers. I would entirely agree with the Labour election manifesto that ‘food security is national security’, so for this and more reasons, Bidfood entirely supports the call for a Good Food Bill” 

Richard Hall, Vice President, General Secretary, Danone North Europe, "Poor diet, especially amongst children, is one of the biggest challenges facing the UK today. Addressing it will require Government, industry and civil society to work together on practical, evidence-based solutions. The Good Food Bill provides an important framework to improve public health while giving businesses the long-term certainty they need to invest and help deliver that change."  

Anna Taylor, Executive Director, The Food Foundation, said, “The UK food system is dangerously exposed to shocks far beyond our borders. Over the last few years, we have seen this play out through rising food prices and increasing diet and health inequalities, with the price gap between healthy and less healthy food at the widest it's been for over a decade. At the same time farmers are struggling to make ends meet. What we need now is a Good Food Bill that sets out a long-term framework for building resilience in the UK food system — one that holds successive governments to account and protects businesses, citizens and farmers alike.” 

Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive, Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, said, “We are living through a period of profound change, yet we are still trying to feed the country with a mid twentieth-century food system built for a more stable world. Wars, a changing climate and the loss of the natural systems our food depends on are driving up prices, and it is families on the lowest incomes who are being hit the hardest. Food resilience can no longer sit at the bottom of the agenda. The breadth of support behind a Good Food Bill shows that it is time for a food and farming system built for the century we are actually in.” 

Blanche Shackleton, Interim Executive Director, Green Alliance said, "Every major shock of recent years has exposed the same weakness: we don't treat food as a strategic national priority. As climate change, nature loss and geopolitical instability place growing pressure on our food system, government needs a long-term plan that matches the scale of the challenge. A Good Food Bill would provide the framework to strengthen food security, support farmers and growers, and give everyone access to healthier, more sustainable food."