Will the National Food Strategy’s ‘experts’ succeed in creating economic growth?

After the excitement of Steve Reed’s initial announcement before Christmas, followed by an ominous period of silence, more details have finally begun to emerge of the government’s plans for the new National Food Strategy.

Today The Grocer revealed Defra has begun recruiting a panel of “industry experts” and a handful of similar from the NGO sector, willing to give up “two to three hours a month” to drive the new masterplan. 

The obvious reaction to that is they had better be fast workers, considering that’s the equivalent of an old-fashioned business lunch. It wouldn’t even get you three-quarters of the way through The Brutalist.

Yet within the next two years, the government expects this group to tackle issues such as the obesity crisis, the race to net zero, food security and turbocharging growth in the food sector.

But maybe, for once, this is a masterstroke from the government.

Far too many previous initiatives have resulted in countless hours of subcommittee sessions, involving second-tier management producing reports that few read, or proposals that never see the light of day.

If by limiting the time involved the new NFS can attract the high-calibre figures needed, maybe they can help drive the agenda that will tackle these huge questions. They might even succeed in creating the coalition of the willing between industry and government that Reed craves.

With the government understood to be planning to unveil around four overarching intended “outcomes” at the initial meeting, within the next few weeks, we are yet to get any detail on the metrics the government plans to use to measure the success of the strategy and on which to judge the industry.

Considering the Horlicks the government has made of working with industry since it came to power, the jury is well and truly out on whether this will be any different. However, all sides are agreed that the NFS is desperately needed and has the potential to be a game-changer.

The same, of course, was said about the Food & Drink Sector Council when it launched in 2018 – and which may now be wound down to make way for the new body.

It’s been a classic example of a good idea that hasn’t lived up to its potential. This has been due to a lack of commitment from government, a mission statement that has chopped and changed, and a revolving door of personnel. Meetings have become further and further apart and have mostly failed to have any significant impact on the industry, let alone “change the game”, despite some talented and high-profile figures being involved.

Writing in The Grocer this week, one of them, FDF CEO Karen Betts, says it is vital the new food strategy doesn’t “fall short”, like countless previous plans.

“It needs to address the issues we all know the food system is facing, with varied degrees of urgency, from food security to the environment, healthy diets and economic growth,” she says.

 It’s understood Defra is keen to recapture the “blitz spirit” that saw the industry rise to the challenges of the Covid pandemic and keep the food supply chain running when war broke out in Ukraine, with the industry FRIF ‘war room’ involving a series of calls between CEOs across the supply chain.

Yet running a successful advisory body in ‘peacetime’ is a very different kettle of fish, despite the urgency of the various issues at stake.

For a start, there are major doubts that the new Labour government has a driving vision for what it wants to achieve, let alone how it will measure success.

However, the good news is the NFS is not starting from scratch.

Reed has already acknowledged that elements of Henry Dimbleby’s 2021 food strategy will be revived, having been widely ignored by the last government.

Considering his proposal included plans for a swathe of new taxes on HFSS foods and a major shake-up of land use to protect the countryside, likely to have farmers revving up their tractors all over again, that could set up some explosive conversations in those two to three-hour talks between industry and NGOs.

However, there were plenty of proposals in the strategy, for example on plans to tackle child food poverty, which most can surely rally around.

Meanwhile, the more recent “resilience group” set up under Booths MD Nigel Murray last spring, is being touted as another initiative that could be folded into the work of the NSF. The group has already worked with the likes of the IGD on plans to try to make the UK’s supply chain less susceptible to future geopolitical shocks.

It will also be interesting to see whether Labour continues the work started under the Food Data Transparency Partnership, including quite advanced plans for voluntary health targets across all major food suppliers, as well as months of work on trying to agree on a recognised way of measuring carbon impact, which the FDTP’s various sub-groups have worked on.

Labour has said it is reviewing the role of body and while it would be a shame to see such work wasted, there are also fears the NFS could become a “dumping ground for all the offcuts” of various previous strategies.

Yet perhaps the biggest question of all is how the new food strategy will succeed in creating economic growth amid fierce and growing criticism of the government’s “wave of taxes” on industry and accusations that Defra officials are, as one source puts it, “ex local authority zealots” who don’t understand the needs of business in this time of crisis.

It will be fascinating to see the calibre of candidates, both from industry and the NGOs, that the government’s new call for action attracts.

It will be a major factor on whether the new food strategy has a chance of success or whether it becomes yet another of those failed policies that promise much but deliver little.