Defra is recruiting a panel of “industry experts” to run Labour’s new National Food Strategy, who it envisages will spend “two to three hours a month” overseeing the plans, The Grocer can reveal.
It is understood ministers are keen to attract high-calibre candidates, in the hope they will bring the knowledge and ideas needed to drive an effective strategy – depite these potential candidates being likely to have demanding jobs which would mean giving enough time would be difficult.
The government aims to hold its first meeting of would-be members in the next few weeks. Environment secretary Steve Reed announced plans in December for a “coalition” of industry and NGOs to tackle problems such as “skyrocketing” obesity levels, food poverty and food resilience.
However, it is understood the birth of the new expert panel could also spell the end for the Food & Drink Sector Council, which sources believe could be seen as surplus to requirements once the NFS is up and running.
Meanwhile, there are calls for the “resilience group” set up under Booths MD Nigel Murray last spring to be made a core part of the strategy. The group has already carried out work on a new food security strategy with IGD.
That could form a major plank in the work, alongside elements of Henry Dimbleby’s previous National Food Strategy, which was released in 2021.
Industry experts
Ministers are also recruiting leaders from a handful of leading NGOs on health and the environment to be a part of the advisory body.
It is understood the government will announce around four “key outcomes” it wants to achieve from the body. These would include ambitions on health, the environment, growth and resilience, though there are as yet no details of any metrics that will be used.
“The appeal has gone out for a panel of industry experts and NGOs,” said a source. “The government wants to put together an advisory group from March onwards.
“The aim is to publish more detailed aims in the summer but that could stretch to September at least.”
Defra has told the industry the group will meet for the equivalent of two to three hours each month for the next two years.
The source said it had been “burnt” by the experience of setting up a circular economic taskforce, which failed to attract high-calibre industry leaders because it demanded too much of a commitment in time.
They added: “The new body does raise questions over what happens now to the Food & Drink Sector Council.
“If you are having a national food and drink strategy, run by a panel of industry experts and NGOs, do you really need a food sector council on top?”
Set up in 2018 and hailed at the time as a “game-changer”, the body, currently co-chaired by former FSA chief executive Tim Smith and food resilience minister Daniel Zeichner, has previously been criticised as being “populated by a group of food and agriculture celebrities” rather than frontline workers.
An effective food stratgey
Writing in The Grocer this week, FDF CEO Karen Betts said it was vital the new food strategy was more effective than previous initiatives.
“We’re very aware that past strategies have covered a variety of ground, and have often fallen short of their potential when it’s come to implementation,” she said.
“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 said the leadership of the group required “more consistent input and stronger co-ordination, from actors large and small.”
However, one industry source said they feared the NFS could effectively become a “dumping ground for all the offcuts” of various previous government strategies. They accused Defra of having “no plan A and no plan B” for how the strategy will work.
“Labour has had years to come up with a food strategy but there is no optimism as we look to start these talks that they have a clear sense of direction,” the source added.
Another leading source said: “There isn’t anyone that has any faith in Defra to deliver a growth agenda.
“Everything we are seeing is in a negative. They are ploughing ahead with regulation and not paying any attention to the cost to consumers.
“It’s the officials that are running the show, not ministers. They are a bunch of ex local authority zealots and they are getting away with murder.
”The Treasury is trying to keep an eye on them but I’m not sure how successful they are being”.
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