Backing British? Benchmarking public food procurement

The Countryside Alliance has submitted Freedom of Information requests (FOIs) 
which asked 19 central government departments, 215 local authorities and the 
British Armed Forces about their food procurement policies, seeking to discover 
what efforts they are making to procure more UK and local food and to monitor the 
origins of the food they serve.

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Only one government department, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development 
Office (FCDO), had a policy relevant to the procurement of British food. Only one 
other, the Department for Health and Social Care, could say what proportion of its 
procured food originated in the UK. The Wales Office said it encourages its external 
caterers to purchase UK-produced food where possible. 

Only 26 local authorities (12% of all those asked) were able to report data 
concerning what proportion of the food they procured was produced in the UK. 70 
councils indicated they do not have any relevant policy associated with procuring 
British food, and there were 42 councils for which no response could be recorded. 
 Scotland and Wales appear to be well ahead of other parts of the UK in local and UK 
food procurement by their councils, driven by their procurement frameworks and 
rates of participation in the Soil Association’s Food for Life scheme. 

The findings suggest that the Labour government will struggle to honour its 
manifesto commitment of ensuring half of all food purchased across the public 
sector is locally produced or certified to higher environment standards. Without 
routine monitoring of levels of catering spend directed towards British food, it will 
not be possible to ascertain progress towards that objective. While we applaud the 
government’s commitment to monitoring food origins, this cannot be limited to 
central government and must be expected of local authorities and other public 
bodies as well. 

At a time when British farmers, food producers and suppliers face economic 
uncertainty, they deserve to have the full support of the public sector with rigorous, 
traceable food procurement policies that ensure public bodies deliver on 
government commitments.