The government has unveiled a five-year Great British Food campaign, which will see celebrity chefs and industry high-ups joining together to advise government and lead trade missions. Defra ministers said on Tuesday that the plan will “help Britain become a Great Food Nation.”

Launching the new campaign at the British Museum of Food in London’s Borough Market on Tuesday, Defra secretary Liz Truss said, “I want to harness the talent of the UK’s food pioneers to banish outdated stereotypes and ensure that British produce is people’s first choice to eat here and abroad. With the help of our pioneers, we can continue to build on the success of our food and drink exports, which have doubled over the past decade, to encourage even more companies to sell Great British produce around the world.”

Defra plans to make 2016 the ‘Year of British Food’, with a series of events running throughout the year to promote domestically produced food at home, and drive up exports elsewhere. The work on exports will be driven by a ‘Great British Food Unit’, which will also oversee an almost three-fold increase in the number of protected food names (like Wensleydale cheese and Melton Mowbray pies).

Responding to the launch, the NFU said it had been calling for such a scheme since August. The union celebrated the Great British Food Campaign as one that will see industry and government “helping to set a framework which supports increasing production” and greater consumption of British food.
 
NFU President Meurig Raymond commented, “We are glad to see Government and leading food pioneers backing this campaign which will highlight the importance of backing British Farming.
 
“Anything which can showcase British farming and farmers, not just for they food they produce, but for the value the British farming industry adds to the economy, employment and our beautiful and diverse countryside is a step in the right direction.”

British food ‘revolution’ won’t address current failing food policy
 
Meanwhile, two recently published reports on food poverty and reliance on food banks in the UK have led prominent food policy professor Tim Lang to warn that the government policies are forcing the third sector to “do [the] dirty work” left by massive failings in current food policy. He argued that a coherent policy will be required to take ownership and create a food system that works for people and the environment, rather than lauding one of Britain’s last manufacturing industries and exporting resource-dense, often unhealthy foods abroad.

Discussing similar policy promises unveiled in July as part of David Cameron’s £7bn food and farming plan (which also included driving up exports and increasing the number of protected food names), the City University Professor told Farming Online, “[The] Government… continues to put faith in a policy which failed in the 1980s - trying to export more processed UK foods abroad to narrow the UK food trade gap,” adding, “To export more [of these foods] is merely to export the causes of health service stress.”

He said, “Britain has done enough of that. We need to be taking a lead in delivering sustainable diets from sustainable food systems. We need to invest heavily in rebuilding horticulture, because fruit and vegetables have to be at the heart of any good food system. Britain’s horticulture is actually shrinking.”

Writing in the Conversation this week, Prof Lang said of the government’s current food policy, “This is a vision of the UK as food trader, not the home of a sustainable food system. It ignores the fact that diet already has huge health and environmental costs, and reinforces rather than prevents the current mismatch of bodies, needs and supply.”