The IGD is to bring back its Feeding Britain’s Future campaign, after warning the UK is facing a looming workforce crisis, despite growing youth unemployment.
It is issuing a rallying cry for “co-ordinated industry action” to tackle the skills gap which it said risked affecting future availability, customer service and wider social outcomes.
Feeding Britain’s Future was first launched in 2012 and provided skills training to tens of thousands of school students as well as highlighting food and grocery careers across retail and manufacturing.
The IGD said a launch will follow later this year, but added it was a crucial time for industry to start having conversations and engaging with the IGD about the programme and how to get involved.
The renewed approach will focus on interventions designed to strengthen the industry’s talent pipeline and support employers to attract, retain and develop essential skills.
It will include providing free, cross-industry early-career learning, a national schools programme to build skills, and a marketing campaign to increase the visibility of food sector careers across widely used platforms and digital channels.
There will also be new strategic university partnerships to raise the profile of food and drink careers.
The return of Feeding Britian’s Future comes with a new report showing that whilst the sector employs 4.1 million people, which is one in every eight UK workers, ongoing labour and skills shortages are showing “little sign of improvement”.
One in eight young adults are not in education, training or employment, and food and drink businesses are struggling to fill essential roles, with unemployment having risen by 652,000 since 2022, while economic inactivity exceeds nine million, revealing what the IGD said were deep structural weaknesses.
“This quiet crisis has been building for years, but the pressure is intensifying and will reach a crisis point without a meaningful shift in approach,” said IGD social impact director Naomi Kissman.
“Our analysis shows this is a structural challenge, bigger than any one business, and it requires industry and government working together to secure the future of the UK food system.
“At the same time, the UK is facing a growing crisis of youth opportunity. We have a responsibility, as the nation’s largest private sector employer, to give young people the future they deserve, as part of a confident, skilled, future-ready workforce.”
The IGD is also calling for a strengthened government partnership, including a national workforce strategy for food and drink, reform of the Growth and Skills Levy, greater certainty on seasonal and skills-based immigration routes, and improved alignment between Jobcentre support, local skills planning and the needs of the sector.
It warned if the pressures continued unchecked, the consequences would be felt far beyond the workforce itself in product availability, operational service levels and cost pressures.
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