The government’s new food buying standards fall short of the ambitions it has for private companies, retailers and producers claim. Why, asks Julia Glotz


It’s rare to get retailers and farmers singing from the same hymn sheet, but the new government standards for food procurement, published by Defra last Thursday, have done just that - although perhaps not in the way the government would have hoped.

Granted, there was an overwhelmingly positive response to the government’s move to 100% sustainable fish (it previously wanted to commit to 60%), but buying standards in other areas have been called “unambitious”, “sloppy” and “unaccountable”.

Take the fact that at a time when the Department of Health is getting private companies to commit to its Responsibility Deal, the government’s own buying standards don’t contain a single mention of reducing trans fats or mandatory requirements for out-of-home calorie labelling. Salt, sugar and satfat cuts get a mention, but there’s no requirement for 100% of relevant lines to be covered; 50% will do.

“On many issues these standards aren’t as challenging as the issues given to retailers by the government,” says Andrew Opie of the BRC. “The government addresses country-of-origin labelling but doesn’t challenge its own buyers to buy British, whereas it does so with retailers.

“Why not go the whole hog and show the leadership you expect of private companies?”

One senior retail executive goes even further. “It’s rank hypocrisy,” he says. “They’re not asking themselves to do what they’ve asked us to do. It beggars belief.”

Of course, the government is hamstrung to an extent by EU rules on public procurement, which prohibit it from implementing straightforward ‘buy British’ rules at the expense of similar products from other countries.

More problematic than the lack of pro-British rules, however, is the “myopic focus on cost”, argues NFU head of food chain, Lee Woodger. The new standards say central government should source all food to UK or equivalent production standards but with the caveat that this should be “subject to no overall increase in costs” - a recipe for quality aspirations being undermined by financial concerns.

Given the headlines this week about £47 pasta for NHS patients, it’s understandable the government wants to avoid food procurement budgets going up, but Woodger believes getting the most out of taxpayers’ money is more about focusing on value than purely on the bottom line.

He is particularly concerned that Defra hasn’t provided sufficiently clear guidelines to help buyers and procurement managers identify exactly what constitutes food produced to UK or equivalent standards. The NFU has spoken to Defra about these shortcomings and has been invited to comment on how the guidelines could be improved.

Elsewhere, clumsy wording creates the impression the document was rushed out when it was actually late. Under its ethical trading requirements, for example, Defra sets out that “at least 50% of tea and coffee is fairly traded,” begging the question of how the other 50% is traded. “Is it slavery tea?” quips one retail executive.

More serious is the apparent lack of a framework for monitoring and enforcing the new standards. Although government departments will be required to publish annual reports showing how they are meeting the new standards providing an opportunity for parliament, the media and the public to hold them into account ‘mandatory requirements’ are ultimately only worth their salt if non-compliance has tangible consequences.

“Where governments lay down standards of production, they should ensure that their own purchases meet these standards,” food and farming minister Jim Paice said last week.

He has some way to go to convince the industry he is as serious about getting the government’s house in order as he is about raising standards in the industry.

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