Here’s a digest of Professor Tim Lang’s new report: Just in Case: 7 steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap, published by the National Preparedness Commission.

Background

The report considers the state of UK civil food resilience and whether the UK public’s readiness for the possibility of food shocks is adequately addressed by current resilience planning. Its focus is on the reaction of the public – rather than government or industry – to shocks.

Main findings:

The UK’s food system is highly vulnerable due to decades of Just-in-Time efficiency and government thinking is complacent about food risks. It concludes that considerable change is needed to bring UK food policy into a fit state of preparedness and calls for a decisive shift from reactive food policies to proactive, community-centred resilience planning. Drawing on lessons from ten countries, it stresses the urgency of embedding food resilience into national policy, proposing a strategic reset from “just-in-time” to “just-in-case” logistics.

Key vulnerabilities: 

• The UK food system has been streamlined by decades of Just-in-Time efficiency seeking. There is no storage and no stockpiles.
• There is no civil food defence – next to no attention to food in crises.
• Recent growth of cyber security is welcome but food defence requires a wider approach. Sweden’s ‘Total Defence’ approach involves the public in resilience preparation down to community and household levels.
• The UK produces only about 60% of its food and much of that is dependent on hidden inputs – fertilisers, energy, ingredients. The UK produces about 16% of the fruit and 55% of vegetables it currently consumes but this is drastically below what would be good for health. What little the UK grows is on land that will be increasingly under pressure of flooding.

Potential for disruption:

• Supplies, infrastructure and markets are too concentrated.
• Consumers are not educated about food management if sources or facilities go down, or if the internet is disrupted. Other countries include their publics in preparing for shock. 
• Food weaponisation through blockades or infrastructure destruction has been happening in Ukraine, Gaza, Darfur, the Red Sea. The UK does not have the naval or military might to protect long routes.
• Climate heating is fundamentally affecting food production and will intensify. 
• Nine ‘super’ retailers provide over 94% of food bought from shops. Four provide three quarters. 12,284 stores are ‘fed’ by only 131 Distribution Centres (hubs).

Official approaches to resilience ignore food:

• Food is one of 14 Critical National Infrastructures (CNI), but the most recent official report of the CNI system back in 2018 was complacent. Its one page verdict was that the UK is safe. The 2024 UK Food Security Report is more cautious but even that fails to explore possible threats.
• The National Risk Register judges only one of 89 risks facing the country to be food related – the possibility of mass food contamination (outbreak).
• Official advice asking the UK public to store three days’ food was too crude. 
• The UK state is failing to recognise what industry increasingly realises, that the ‘super-efficient’ Just-in-Time food system is stretched, and is locked into centralisation. This creates a risk in itself.
• A barrier to resilience planning is the State’s reluctance to get involved in food. 
• How the public would react to deep shocks is uncertain, Local and regional state bodies are aware of the stress caused by the cost of living crisis, and that the capacity for civil food resilience is low but lack powers and resources to do much about it.

What are the seven steps to civil food resilience?

1. Learn from others
2. Assess the public’s mood, perceptions and engagement
3. Map the community’s food assets
4. Local authorities are key to building civil food resilience
5. Create local Food Resilience Committees to co-ordinate resilience preparation
6. The UK central state must create and maintain a coherent food policy
7. Re-set the Government Resilience Framework for food

Key recommendations:

1. Legislate for a comprehensive UK food policy
2. Pass law that obligates the government to feed the public in crises
3. Shift to a just-in-case food system
4. Reassess food as critical national infrastructure
5. Create a national council for food security: 
6. Integrate food into National and Community Risk Registers:
7. Include food in the National Infrastructure Commission’s workplans:
8. Update crisis communication
9. Research stockpiling and rationing: 
10. Engage civil society
11. Form local Food Resilience Committees 
12. Prioritise urban and decentralised food production in planning
13. Promote regional food strategies
14. Foster food resilience learning exchanges
15. Invest in research