IGD conference: is industry up to the challenges ahead?

For the first time since before the supply chain chaos of the pandemic, the IGD brought together many of the industry’s key movers and shakers this week for a major conference on the future of the food industry.

Attracting speakers including several from the government’s Food Strategy Advisory Board (FSAB) and major campaign voices on sustainability and heath, the event on Wednesday was introduced by Sainsbury’s CEO and IGD president Simon Roberts, at a “crossroads” moment for a sector swamped with political and economic challenges.

But can the industry find ­consensus on the way forward? And even if it does, can it rely on the support needed from government?

The IGD set the tone with a major new report this week warning the industry is on course for an environmental disaster that will drive up commodity costs and prices for consumers without urgent action.

It estimates that on its current trajectory, the industry will incur extra costs of £2.6bn a year by 2050 – the equivalent of a near 15% spike in spend on key commodities, due to a combination of factors including water stress, soil erosion, the impact of rising temperatures on fish stocks and pollinator losses due to climate change.

“We need a clear plan to unlock change and build resilience,” said Roberts, an FSAB member. “We have to build different ways of working and bring industry and government together.

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“We need a national food strategy which has the food supply chain at the very top of the agenda. We want to be the engine of change.”

Improving supply chain resilience and preparedness for supply chain shocks was identified as a key aim of Defra’s food strategy in July.

But with the minister in charge of the strategy, Daniel Zeichner, sacked in a recent reshuffle, and a new Defra team brought in by PM Keir Starmer, there are questions over whether ministers share the IGD report’s sense of urgency. Alarming signs have emerged, say sources, that ministers are less than fully on board, following Starmer’s intervention this summer to scrap plans for a food white paper – which had been outlined in a draft outcomes document – amid inflationary fears.

Food Foundation executive director Anna Taylor, also on the FSAB, told attendees a white paper was a “vital first step” to showing ministers are serious.

It has also emerged since the summer recess that the government plans to slash the frequency of the FSAB meetings from once a month to every two.

Dr Kelly Parsons, an academic from the University of Cambridge, warned the conference of a sense that essential “high-level backing” was “not there”.

“Without it this stuff is not going to happen. It’s going to languish on the shelf.”

More evidence that the industry may find it hard to get its message across came from Booths boss Nigel Murray, who last year led a resilience group set up under the Food & Drink Sector Council.

Confidence boost

Murray told the conference it had presented ministers with a range of proposals for boosting confidence in supply chains and resilience in the UK food system.

“Our first recommendation was that the government needs to get confidence back in the farming system,” he said. “The planning system is absolutely unfit for purpose to allow our farms and food companies to step up to improve resilience.

“Another major recommendation was that we have to do more to unlock growth in home produce.”

Under the Labour government, the work of the council has been placed ‘on hold’, as previously revealed by The Grocer. So far, only a broad statement on prioritising resilience has emerged, rather than firm plans.

This week’s IGD report, in collaboration with accountancy giant EY, stressed the need for “immediate action” from both businesses and government if food security is to be safeguarded.

And if food security is in peril, the war on obesity also appears to be heading in the wrong direction.

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Chief medical officer Chris Whitty, perhaps the FSAB’s highest-profile member, told the conference: “We are in a situation wherein most areas of public health we are showing visible progress, but in obesity in particular and some other areas of nutrition we are not. It is clearly going the wrong way.”

Whitty called for ministers to urgently press ahead with plans for mandatory health reporting, while also calling for the policy to be targeted at areas of the worst deprivation, claiming obesity was “far more regional than people realise”.

Former health tsar Henry Dimbleby told the event the previous government’s rowbacks, including the delays to the HFSS promotions ban and advertising clampdown – both of which came belatedly into play this week – were his biggest policy regrets.

Dimbleby also warned things could get worse for the industry, forecasting a future in which “one of four adults are on appetite-suppressant drugs, science has proven the link between UPF and serious harm, and governments have continued to use their power to tax and regulate unhealthy food”.

Neither could it count on government support. Defra’s reshuffle suggested it was “going back to being the sort of backwater it used to be before Michael Gove”, he added.

Not all views at the event were quite so dystopian, though breakout sessions left no doubt of the scale of challenges.

Waste breakthrough

One such challenge, in reducing food waste in the supply chain, saw a major breakthrough this week, with the industry’s Coronation Food Project breaching its initial target of redistributing 10 million meals in under two years since launch.

Wrap CEO Catherine David, one of a raft of experts presenting, said urgent additional action was needed to reduce the food industry’s impact on climate change, describing household waste as “the big remaining challenge and currently a nut which remains uncracked”.

And with the first EPR invoices landing this month, David said she hoped the industry would realise the long-term benefits of the taxes.

As calls for action from the Chancellor ratchet up before the budget, can long-term gain triumph over short-term pain?

“The right people are here in the room,” said Catherine Conway, director of reuse consultancy GoUnpackaged.

“Businesses really believe in what they’re saying and they want to do the right thing, but unfortunately it’s just not as easy as that.

“A question for industry is whether they will continue to align once the commercial realities come into play,” she added. “There will be a lot of costs coming down the line, so businesses need to hold their nerve.

“It needs to be the CEOs. We know the ESG teams and people doing the work want to make change, but the people with power need to come together and have honest conversations about how to move forward.”

The point applies equally to the government. It promised its new food strategy would herald a new era of collaboration on the big issues.

The question is, can it help the industry step up while it is busy with the fiscal pressures of the here and now?