Put our sector at the heart of food policy
The political party conference season is a fascinating time for those of us who spend our lives lobbying for the industry. You need a strong constitution to get through the month, but it allows us to keep abreast of emerging themes of policy debate.
The good news is that discussions on food and health were noticeable by their absence this year a massive change from the bad days of 2006 and 2007, when conference conversations were dominated by obesity, for which the food industry took most of the blame. Instead, the big debates have centred on the future challenges to our food security as a result of climate change, higher global demand for commodities and increasing pressure on finite resources.
The Conservatives are particularly hot on these issues and they had plenty to say about the need for clearer country of origin labelling and better approaches to public sector procurement, which they see as essential to promoting British standards of food production.
There is now recognition across all the main parties that we need to have a much more strategic approach to food production in this country, focusing on more than the importance of domestic farming. To help focus their thinking, we have launched a checklist of 20 simple things the next government could do to support food and drink manufacturing.
We believe the facts about our sector speak for themselves: we play a vital role in underpinning the UK economy and feeding the nation. That's why we are urging politicians to put our sector at the heart of their future food policies in a way that takes full account of the economic, strategic and social importance of manufacturers.
Encouragingly, this message clearly resonated at this year's conferences. But the hard work lies ahead and over the next seven months we must keep ramming home this point in the run up to the election.
Julian Hunt director of communications at the Food and Drink Federation
