Resilience is best defined as the capacity to maintain function and adapt in the face of disruption. It is, therefore, a systemic property.
My favourite analogy to illustrate resilience is a shoal of fish: no single fish can be immune from the predator, yet the shoal can be. Individual fish can be fit, agile, responsive, prepared.
For our food system, including agriculture, resilience requires us to be prepared collectively for disruption which can be caused by a growing list of risks – a recent IGD report listed 10 risks, ranging from economics of the food system to opaque supply chains. Climate change, biodiversity loss and extreme weather are in the list also. These risks are increasingly interconnected and can amplify each other.
Yet, it has required the “bombshell memo” from Inside Track x Food about industry’s lack of preparedness for the impact of climate risks, and positive publicity by The Grocer, to get the real issues of resilience into some of our conversations across the UK food industry. This memo calls out complacency and wishful thinking across the majority of our industry.
In private, I have paraphrased this over the years as: “We have a strategy and some long-term targets, Alan, which we have invested time and effort in developing. Now we need to get on with business.”
Challenges in resilience are well recognised, such as in the UK Food Security Review 2024 which stated that the food system faces “vulnerabilities in resilience and the persistence of existing stresses in the food system”.
Negative attitudes
There is some significant negativity towards resilience across our industry. Earlier this year, resilience was described as “hot air” and “the latest buzzword” to a room of nodding food industry leaders attending the City Food & Drink Lecture. This unhelpful portrayal of resilience overshadowed the important subsequent remarks: “Resilience is simple – doing the right thing, in the right place and continually investing and adapting.”
Sentiment matters, and the sentiment in the room that evening was not positive towards resilience and related issues.
Various food industry stakeholders and commentators have been vocal about UK food security in recent months. This also merits clarifying, as resilience is an essential prerequisite for food security.
Food security has three primary aspects: physical access to food, economic access to food, and healthy, nutritious food. None of these are aspects which the food supply chain can directly deliver. As a citizen, my physical and economic access to food, and the healthiness of that food, are influenced by the entire food system – not just the supply chain. Individual actors and whole sectors across the food supply chain can contribute collectively and collaboratively to resilience, and thus to food security.
The work ahead
Ultimately, we need to build a resilient UK food system. For individual companies, the path I recommend is:
- Understand the concept of resilience internally
- Build internal capabilities
- Communicate and collaborate with your stakeholders
- Learn from inevitable disruption, and grow.
At an industry level, Inside Track has called for an open conversation across industry, and longer-term investment. How do we create the space and the incentives for this conversation, and involve all food system influencers beyond industry? How do we enable UK government to support as it did during Covid, especially with the creation of collaborative space which is less constrained by competition law compliance?
How do we bring all the influencers within the food system together on this journey? Policymakers, regulators, brand owners, media, NGOs, academia, trade bodies, and citizens all have significant roles to play.
This is not happening anywhere yet, and all the disruption clocks are ticking. Time to go from memos, articles and opinion pieces to doing the real work of resilience: collaboration, progress and transformation.
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