The first comprehensive overview of the economic importance of the UK’s Food Supply Chain (FSC) has been published today (24th May) in a bid to give the industry greater prominence in policy and on skills, employment and development.

The UK Food Supply Chain Report has been authored by food and drink skills council Improve, working in partnership with four other Sector Skills Councils involved in the food supply chain – Lantra, People 1st, Skills for Logistics and Skillsmart Retail – alongside Defra, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), the IGD and NFU.

The report outlines that, with 3.7 million employees, the FSC is the UK’s largest employer, accounting for 14 per cent of the total UK workforce. It also highlights that FSC turnover has increased by 18 per cent since 2007, now standing at £412 billion, with exports growing by the same proportion over the same period to £16.1 billion.

As well as economic impact, the landmark publication looks at the key drivers for change across the industry and places considerations for future growth in the context of government policy on food and skills, food security, environmental sustainability, technological developments, consumer demand and globalisation.

The key focus is skills, looking at common areas across primary production, food and drink manufacturing and processing, food retail and hospitality where productivity and performance could be improved through training and workforce development in response to the complex variety of influences affecting the industry.

Writing the foreword to the report, Jim Paice, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food, welcomed it’s publication as an important step towards taking a ‘whole Food Supply Chain’ approach in food policy.

“The FSC makes an immense contribution to the economy,” he said. “I believe, as I know the industry do, that its potential is even greater and that’s where work on skills is vital. Collaboration across the entire FSC is essential to this and this report represents an excellent example of how the Sector Skills Councils and key partners can work together to collectively identify shared opportunities and challenges.”

The report finds evidence of consistent skills shortages and skills gaps across all sectors, particularly at management, professional and skills trades level, which suggest work needs to be done to ensure the workforce is adequately trained to perform at its best.

Sukky Jassi, head of research and sector insight at Improve, said: “Across all sectors, we found consistent evidence that a significant proportion of employees in the industry do not possess recognised industry qualifications at the levels expected for their job role. This is particularly true of management and skilled trade roles.”

“It has to be said that food and drink is traditionally an industry that favours more informal, on-the-job skills development, so lack of qualifications doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of skills per se. But the frequency with which leadership, technical and job-specific skills are cited by employers as priorities for development or as being in short supply backs up the perception that this an area which needs addressing.”

“The main conclusion drawn from the report is that, as well as specific and unique areas pertinent to farms, manufacturing and retail, there is clearly also a lot of common ground in the skills issues affecting businesses right across the FSC. It is therefore logical to work collaboratively towards shared solutions where these exist.

“Be it looking at ways to improve the formal recognition of skills developed in the workplace, sharing resources on recruitment or developing common training approaches to create a more multi-skilled and flexible workforce, working together will be key to achieving a secure, sustainable and competitive supply chain in the future.”

The publication of the UK Food Supply Chain Report follows 12 months of collaboration between the sector skills councils and trade organisations in pressing the coalition government to recognise food and drink as a single, cohesive industry in its policy making. A parliamentary reception held at the House of Commons last October was attended by 100 MPs, civil servants and industry leaders, and led to an Early Day Motion calling on the government to tackle specific skills shortages in food and drink to be tabled.

A follow-up report, Skills Action Plan for the Food Supply Chain, due to be published in June, will set out a blueprint on how these goals can be achieved, playing an important role in the implementation of Defra’s structural reform plan to encourage sustainable food production by increasing competitiveness and resilience across the FSC.