One question being asked with increasing frequency over the summer by chairs and CEOs of our leading food and drink firms – the high command of the industry – is: how much is it really worth our business engaging with political parties?
It is a perennial concern. For most corporate execs, too much close contact with ministers is pretty bothersome, never mind talking to opposition MPs and peers who do not have the prospect of office in the next four years. Fostering those relationships come with all sorts of extra potential hassle or jeopardy (to use a word purloined by the BBC’s Chris Mason).
Talk to the government – as you really must – and you run the risk of being used as a public reference point by a minister who (unless it’s Rachel Reeves or Johnny Reynolds) has all the understanding of business of a contestant on The Apprentice. Talk to an opposition spokesperson and it’s worse: you could end up being praised in a speech by Kemi Badenoch. Close association with Reform would be like publicly declaring you are a Millwall supporter: brave but a short route to being Nobby Nomates.
All of those suggestions sound like easy jokes. But each of them has been mentioned to me by former colleagues or industry associates over recent weeks.
The challenges facing our industry
Yet for most of the industry there has rarely been a time when policy formulation or the response to geopolitical events has been so potentially important. Look at just some of the issues on the agenda.
Increased business taxation raises serious questions about the ability to survive for many companies. Yet we all know the Chancellor has a £40bn black hole to fill. Something has to give.
Combatting obesity is clearly a national priority for people to have better life chances and the NHS to work. But allowing the government to swallow the fatuous, metropolitan elite narrative on ultra-processed food would damage several food and drink sectors beyond repair.
Then there is labour and its cost. In a supine attempt to halt the rise of Reform, Labour and the Tories have been consumed in a gadarene rush to embrace a randomly more or less extreme version of ‘stop the boats’. (I leave aside the observation that those on the boats must be the last people who think the UK would be a great place to be.) Meanwhile Keir Starmer, Badenoch and – most of all – Farage tell us day after day what a terrible place the UK has become. It would be ironic if it wasn’t so foolish.
This is a nativist shriek, not a policy for a diversified, skilled labour force. Right now food manufacturing, hospitality, retail and farming simply don’t have access to enough workers. The consequence of the increasingly desperate fight to attract those who are here is ever-rising labour costs. Put that together with supply chain pressure caused by a combination of climate change and geopolitical tensions, and you can be certain that food price inflation will be in the range of 5%-8% by Christmas, taking us right back to a cost of living crisis.
There are many more urgent policy considerations which demand the industry’s active participation. The consequence of climate change and how to absorb AI into an industrial strategy and the education of the next generation are just two that come to mind. So the National Food Strategy and the role of its high-powered advisory board are welcome developments.
But a bunch of (very senior and talented) bigwigs from big companies, convened by the IGD (itself representative of very big players), is not the whole answer. That requires every company – and every reader of The Grocer – that might object to the outcome of these debates to speak up and make their views known. We must keep doing so loudly, and with courage.
From personal experience, I know the real industry view will often be unpopular, not just with government but also with the metropolitan elite and those ideologically aligned with Reform. That’s exactly why it’s so vital to speak up and make it known.
Ian Wright, partner at Acuti Associates
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