Food systems impacts of COVID 19
Food systems impacts of COVID 19
By Prof. Michael Winter One of the tasks in this project has been to keep an eye on what is usually called the ‘trade press’. And one of the publications, which I confess I was unaware of prior to this research project, is Speciality Food. For anyone who is interested in following food news, […]
By Prof. Michael Winter Even in the best organised research project – and I am not claiming that epithet for our project! – it is possible to miss some really valuable research. So back in June 2020 a report snuck past me and only came to light as a reference in a recently published […]
By Prof. Michael Winter On the 7th April 2021, the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published a follow-up inquiry[1] to its initial inquiry in 2020[2] on the impacts of the pandemic on food. The focus of the new report is on food insecurity for individuals and the food supply […]
By Tim Wilkinson The 12th April 2021 marked Step 2 on the government’s Covid roadmap, giving us further possibilities of a less restricted life. Hospitality businesses were able to open to customers served outside. With non-essential shops and highstreets reopening too, the date was also something of a symbol of coming out of the […]
By Prof. Michael Winter These words are not mine but a question posed by Speciality Food on publication of the Commission report in March. Given the high profile of the debate around food standards in the run up to the last-gasp Brexit deal, and during the passage through Parliament of the Agriculture bill, the […]
By Prof. Michael Winter It has become customary for critics of the UK food system to attack the weakness and fragmentation of regulatory arrangements: too many government departments with inadequately demarcated responsibilities, compounded by differences between different parts of the union and the weakness of local government. The usual standard-bearers for this critique might […]
By Tim Wilkinson In Sky television’s humorous political thriller Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, while on a dinner date the protagonist Jack Ryan describes himself as being in ‘Supply Chain Logistics’. This is cover for his real job as a CIA analyst and anti-terrorist operative. It reminds me of the moment in HBO’s Sopranos, where […]
By Tim Wilkinson We have previously outlined some of the challenges faced by wholesalers as a consequence of the pandemic. Although wholesale businesses were not legally forced to close, they have been adversely affected. The closure of the food service industry dramatically reduced some wholesaler’s customer supply needs. However, with customers like hospitals, care […]
By Tim Wilkinson The fourth Centre for Rural Policy Research South West Farm Survey went out in the post in October 2020 and we have a great set of responses to process and analyse. Having run a farmer survey for the South West in 2006, 2010 and 2016, we are excited to see how […]
By Prof. Michael Winter No-one is in any doubt that the Pandemic has for many people changed where they eat, especially during the lockdowns, with home cooking and takeaways flourishing at the expense of eating out. But the question of what people are eating is more complex. Headline data from Kantar published by the […]