In recent days, a study has been published by the Journal ‘Sustainability’ on MDPI, called Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation , which as the name suggests, focuses on the most hard hitting impacts or consequences of food shortages.

The upshot, which has found itself in at least one newspaper, suggests that there could be civil unrest related to food shortages within the next 10-15 years.

Whilst I have found the work helpful in view of the questions that I am hoping to answer through the research I have been doing, it concerns me greatly that what was clearly a well thought out piece of work doesn’t go further than building a warning for the future, based upon the opinions of stakeholders.

To be fair, if anyone were to say ‘there will be a food crisis this time next week’, they might get a moments attention at the time, but are just as likely (if not more so) to face ridicule if the crisis suggested doesn’t materialise on time. With the inherent risk that in this day and age, there will be the risk of getting sued.

But does this mean we are not getting the messages – and warnings, that we really need?

My reason for being here is the concern that I have about the coming food crisis and what it will  mean if none of the people who should be taking proactive steps now, have done so at the point in time that crisis then begins.

I am as sure as I can be that a lot more of us see the direction of travel than we might be led to believe, especially when so many of us fall into the trap of focusing on our own perspective or what the parts of the wider issue are, that have an affect on us.

However, the content and benefit of that thought means nothing, if we haven’t brought it all together, made sense of it and found the common ground to walk on, as one.

There’s a lot of difficult news out there today, but one thing that seems to have passed everything else by are the comments made by the International Monetary Fund about the Bank of England’s forecasts for Inflation over the next few years.

A BBC Business Report today revealed that The IMF ‘warned Bank of England rates would peak at 6% and stay around 5% until 2028’.

‘Accepted’ Interest Rates are currently 5.25% and with a General Election perhaps only months away, it sadly comes as little surprise that the mainstream Political Parties are playing down the issues surrounding inflation and making claims that they have the strategy to get a grip on the problem.

The trouble for anyone struggling to make ends meet – and specifically to keep buying the food that they may still be able to now – is that even if the real rate of Inflation were to fall to around 3% per year, that would mean that the cost of food, goods and everything else would still be rising by at least £3 for every £100 that we spend.

Contrary to the way that Politicians talk about this very serious issue on the news, Prices are not falling and are not going to fall anytime soon, whilst thinking remains the same.

That’s a worry for us all.

Hands up; I love Jaffa Cakes. And I’m betting there’s a very good chance that you love Jaffa Cakes too.

In fact, instead of making me have second thoughts about this McVities Product, the recent BBC ‘Inside the Factory’ Episode from Series 7, that took us through the whole production process only made me feel like I’d grown to enjoy these must eat the whole packet now they are open treats even more.

And yes. Jaffa Cakes are very much a treat and to be fair, they do fall well outside of the Basic and Essential foods that The Growing UK Food Problem and this Blog are all about. However, they can illustrate one of the big issues about pre-packaged foods and related products that we buy from supermarkets and what food inflation – and dare I say it, manipulation looks like, without many of us even noticing that there are some very questionable practices within the food/retail industry at work.

Whilst I’ve mentioned Tesco in Cheltenham a couple of times already, I’m not anti-Tesco. I shop there at least once a week and I have made a conscious and considered decision to do so, based on accessibility to all the items that I will need in the smallest number of shops necessary, and at a price that is (hopefully) the best it can then be.

Yes, I like Tesco – because it makes sense for me to shop there. But in terms of the retailers’ ethics, morality – and most importantly to me, their pricing policy, it certainly doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that they do!

Right. Let’s get back to Jaffa Cakes.

Earlier this week, I bought a small (single) pack of Jaffa Cakes from the Tesco Express, which is located right next to the new John Lewis flagship store on Cheltenham High Street.

This morning, I picked up another small (single) pack of Jaffa Cakes from a Coop Partnership store on Cheltenham’s Hewlett Road – which is about a 5-minute walk between the two.

Although these are both ‘convenience’ stores, rather than ‘proper’ supermarkets, and its generally accepted that these types of stores have a premium attached, the reality is that Tesco and the stores that come under their umbrella such as One Stop, tend to be at least a little cheaper than the smaller retailers and independents – because of the economics of scale – if nothing more.

From this point of view alone, there’s not really a lot of juice that can be squeezed out of an argument about pack price – even when there isn’t a Clubcard Offer or the equivalent, on.

However, what does raise a red flag, and perhaps not in the way that you might think, is the question of how many ‘Cakes’ come from these different stores, when you go in and buy a ‘single’ pack?

What I learned this week, is there isn’t just one size of ‘single’ box of Jaffa Cakes. There are in fact at least two!

From the Tesco Store, I purchased a ‘Single’ box that contained ten (10) Jaffa Cakes, whereas my trip earlier today yielded me a ‘Single’ Box that contained twelve (12) Jaffa Cakes – albeit with every other aspect about the product contained within the boxes being exactly the same.

Put in this context, the price we pay for what we believe to be the same thing with the BIG retailer suddenly doesn’t feel quite as keen in comparison to buying from the smaller company, and it has certainly made me wonder just how many other items on supermarkets should be falling into the category of ‘buyer beware’ – because even when we believe we are paying the same, there is actually less in terms of content, and so we are actually paying a lot more?

In the Book ‘Levelling Level’ I discussed the food issues relating to what we need vs what we want, and how the future is primed to require that we return to a very simple relationship with the food that we eat – because much of what we ‘live on’ today, may soon become unavailable, unaffordable or in all likelihood both.

The foods that we eat are making us ill. In some cases, they are actually killing us. And the only real reason that we have been and continue to fall over ourselves to eat foods that are fashionable and apparently taste good, is someone somewhere makes a lot of money when we buy into a narrative that’s based on nothing that is easy to see.

Regrettably, it’s no longer as simple as parents and self-sufficient adults choosing between healthy eating and eating ultra processed foods or living on takeaways.

Food that’s good for us is expensive to buy. Healthy food can be expensive to prepare. And life is conditioned to make us believe that fast everything is good for us and is the very best way to live – no matter the damage it does in ways that many would find hard to believe.

The stories and marketing campaigns that make the system work this way are convincing. Because they always contain a small element of truth. No matter how irrelevant to the key subject it might be.

Bad food certainly tastes good. But how do you feel after you’ve eaten it?

Ultra processed food certainly appears to be the quicker and easier option and it seems to always be available here and now. But have you ever considered the real cost – that’s the cost beyond what we pay for food that has no identifiable resemblance to whatever it contains?

Basic, or rather essential foods, are the vegetables, meats, fish, dairy products and breads that require no processing or very simple and straightforward processing to prepare for eating that we might call traditional and would be carried out by hand or simple mechanical processes such as milling through a water powered or wind powered windmill.

Basic or Essential Foods are those that we can prepare ourselves or can access them with only one or perhaps only two steps of handling or preparation between our front door and the farm gate, orchard or quayside from where the raw ingredients were harvested or unloaded from the catch.

Good, healthy and nutritious basic foods that come from the  UK or around our shoreline only seem to be expensive now, because the whole food production system has been engineered in such a way that UPFs and foods that come via very large supply chains are considered to now be normal. However, they are only normal because they are the most cost effective ie profitable way for the big companies retailers and commercial interests that make ridiculous profits from a system that otherwise defies all logic.

If you are ready to eat healthy and embrace sourcing and preparing food that is nutritious – and delicious in its unadulterated forms, you could be helping to increase U.K. food security by making this very positive switch.

The more we buy local vegetables, dairy products, breads, pies, cakes, fish, hams, bacon, sausages, other meats and foods like these that local farmers, growers and fishers offer us, the better the offering will become and the better the prices will be for us all.

Demand will help producers to switch their business models and the operational processes within them to working in ways that are not only sustainable, but with every step will help make the U.K. food supply more and more secure.

If you have access to a farm shop, farmers market or fresh fish delivery round that connects with one of the UKs amazing fishing ports, please use them – even if only as a special treat. Tell everyone you can where they are and what they do.

You’ll be helping our producers to change their businesses in a very positive way.

But above all, you’ll be helping U.K. farmers, producers and growers to help you!

Awake in the early hours of this morning, I went through my social media feeds and didn’t have to travel far before a post from Reuters popped up that flagged the upcoming profit announcement from Tesco, which as a BIG retail business currently holds a 27% share of the U.K.s grocery market.

To make it easier on my early hours and flu ridden brain, I decided to narrow the figures down to the equivalent of one weekly shop per household. The purists amongst us would argue that it needs to be more precise (I use a Tesco Express as well as the local superstore and am sure many others do to). But for the purposes of getting some perspective, the results are pretty much the same.

What I ended up with (and please feel free to correct me if my 2am mathematics was out) is that of the households that shop weekly at Tesco, an average £8.38 of the cash price of that shop or the payment is pure profit for Tesco. Or, rather, that is the money they pay to their shareholders via dividends at the end of their company year.

My guess is, that’s plus or minus the equivalent of 10% of most of our shopping bills. When you put it into this context, it seems rather a lot.

And that’s before thinking about what all the big corporate interests that sell goods to Tesco make, when they are big enough and have clout enough to dictate to a retailer of this size and with this level of market share what the prices and margins will be.

However, the question ‘What is an acceptable level of profit?’ does become cloudy when we add the perspective that a local farm shop or food trader at a local farmers market may not be able to function with a percentage profit margin, that for a very SMALL business is likely to be catastrophically low.

The issues around our food supply and how we make production sustainable across the UK whilst also making it secure and fully accessible to all are very complex indeed.