It’s easy to write off the government’s Good Food Cycle as peddling (pedalling?) old ideas. But that would be too kind. E-bike evangelist and food security minister Daniel Zeichner rolled into Bradford’s new Darley Street food market to launch the long-awaited food strategy this week with all the pizzazz of a Sunday afternoon WI bake sale.
Despite Zeichner’s commendable efforts to pull together a tricky coalition of food industry bosses, NGOs and academics to agree on bold policies to tackle the obesity crisis, supply chain resilience frailty and sector growth, the government’s 10 objectives were so broad and topline, it’s hard to pinpoint a single specific policy.
It’s clearly not easy getting the FSAB’s board-of-all-the talents to reach a consensus on a national food strategy – even just for England. And Defra points out it’s only had three months to work on the plan. But it’s worth noting that by the time spring 2026 comes around, when it promises more concrete policies will be on the table, Labour will have been in power for two years. Where was the plan to hit the ground running when it came into power? There was plenty of time. And it was not as if they had to look hard to find a shelf-ready solution in Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy. To his credit, Zeichner has grasped that to be successful a food strategy must promote industry growth and not just tax it into submission. But it doesn’t smack of a party with many answers.
Indeed, The Grocer’s bombshell revelation this week that plans for a food white paper next year to give the strategy teeth had been kiboshed by Sir Keir carries all the hallmarks of ex-prime minister Boris Johnson’s instant dismissal of Dimbleby’s original draconian plan.
When the prospect of a new food strategy was belatedly announced in November, senior Whitehall sources were adamant that Defra wasn’t in the business of starting the process from scratch. Yet with so little detail, Defra has its work cut out to show that’s not the case – especially with No 10 and No 11 telling Zeichner and his coalition to get on their bike.
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