Supply Chains Reform in Food Systems
Report by Vicki Hird for Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
April 2025
About
This summary of the full report explores the role that supply chains have in our food systems and what the opportunities and challenges are for driving change towards better outcomes for people and nature, including a widespread transition to nature friendly farming.
As well as informing Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s future work, we hope it will be useful to other organisations and people interested in improving our food system.
The report does not necessarily reflect the views or position of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, or the people interviewed as part of the process.
Vicki Hird MSc FRES
Vicki Hird is an expert consultant for NGOs and institutions, including work for RSPB, World Animal Protection International, Greenpeace International, and the Sustainable Development Commission. She is also Strategic Lead on Agriculture at The Wildlife Trusts and was Head of Sustainable Farming for Sustain - the alliance for better food and farming, Vicki has 35 years’ experience working on environment, food and farming and justice issues, including advising for and featuring in the film Six Inches of Soil
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Founded in 1961, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is one of the UK’s largest independent funders. We aim to improve our natural world, secure a fairer future and strengthen the bonds in communities in the UK. We unlock change by contributing everything we can alongside people and organisations with brilliant ideas who share our goals.
To improve our natural world, we believe nature friendly farming has immense value with benefits not just for biodiversity but for people. Through our nature friendly farming support, we want to contribute to the following long-term outcomes:
• Soil health is restored
• A fairer food system that improves outcomes for nature and communities
• Farmers are supported to lead the transition to nature friendly farming at scale
www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk
1. Introduction
In 2023, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (EFF) commissioned a mid-strategy review of their support for nature friendly farming, which identified supply chain reform as a key potential driver to creating change. To help them better understand what the issues are and inform future work, EFF commissioned Vicki Hird to undertake further research into supply chains. This included exploring what current activities are seeking to influence or address issues in the supply chain - issues that are undermining outcomes for people and nature - and to better understand whether and where there are potential collaborations and interventions.
2. Methodology
This analysis focused on mapping and interviewing key players on fairness and sustainability, and summarising what they think needs to happen. This, plus a brief gap analysis of current EFF funded work, and thorough desk research provided detailed suggestions on opportunities for change in the short and longer term. It explored the opportunities for influence, what strategies are needed, and highlighted the need to challenge existing assumptions.
3. Overview of the UK food system
As the issues involved in this work underpin the whole economics of our global food supply chain, challenging it and rebalancing power in the system through regulating it well – in addition to creating and supporting alternatives (an important approach to show proof of concept) – will be a hard and complex challenge. Politicians also are hugely wary of intervention in case this affects food prices and access, and because the UK agri-food sector is a major driver of economic growth.
Accessing the data and complex supply chain pricing is also a challenge as much is proprietorial and within complex chains. Any focus on voluntary approaches by the food industry, e.g. retailers, is bound to fail as they need to push their supply chains on price, here and overseas, as hard as they can always to deliver the tiny profits per unit sold.
But this area, often-neglected by NGOs and civil society due to the complexities above - needs addressing. The highly concentrated and highly competitive UK food sector creates significant problems for nature and society in the UK and impacts are global with 40% of food imported and an ever-increasing marketing focus on highly processed foods which rely on cheap, uniform commodities based on low global prices and standards. This is a barrier to building more diverse, multifunctional farming based on well protected ecosystems and nature delivering to nearer, informed consumers To achieve this, consumers need purchasing power and farmers selling power.
The negative impacts include on ecosystems (such as soil, water, nutrient cycles) and wildlife, pesticides, climate, food waste (all explored in more detail in the full report). Recent research by the Soil Association Exchangei indicated that the biggest barriers that might be preventing farmers from fully committing to a business model transition that prioritises climate and nature outcomes include:
• Financial and business risks
• The unknown unknowns i.e. how conventional farming system acts as an ‘insurance’ for my farm i.e., I know what outputs I can get
• Policy uncertainties i.e. delays to the environmental land management schemes
• The complexities and skills of stacking enterprises.
A major imbalance of power exists; an imbalance of risk taking and a lack of understanding of where the money goes in the food chain. The evidence is clear that farmers and growers get far too little (209,000 farmers selling to 17 food retailers and farmers getting 10% of Gross value added for food). Over recent years, thousands of farms have gone out of business and livelihoods lost, despite the large annual £3bn budget for farm subsidies. So low and uncertain returns from the market are key. Food specifications and standards have not helped – both government and industry and wider industry policies – such as on cosmetic appearance and uniformity of produce- can affect the likelihood of better or worse outcomes for nature and food waste.
This is a complex policy area and influence could be made on several key policy areas to deliver a range of short term and longer-term changes. There are a wide range of areas where competition policy could help – such as on fair dealing regulations, mergers and acquisitions, but also significant weaknesses. The two fair dealing Adjudicators (which the author campaigned for) are a start and working, but need to be reformed to deliver some of what we need.
3.1 Key overall approaches Esmée Fairbairn Foundation should consider
A strategic and interlinked approach to influence policy makers
We need to have well-resourced political, communication and public engagement strategies1, interlinked to drive the change needed, as choosing only one element is likely to fail given the huge lobbying capacity of the food industry.
Campaign for transparent data on the money flows and impact
Without this it will always be a challenge to ensure fair rewards for sustainable farming. We must get the government to consider rules to ensure transparency i.e. more price transparency in supply chains to ensure farmers have greater bargaining power when negotiating prices and deals. And we need to get key campaigning organisations to bring prices and unfairness into their narratives and campaigns. We should make the near future stresses on food systems globally from climate chaos part of the narrative to leverage more support.
The need to look closer at commodities
The issue of commodities is hard. Key commodities like grains, fats, proteins, potato starch, sugar, maize, soy, commodity meat and dairy as well as traditional ones like tea and coffee all make up the bulk of farming. Therefore, they have the biggest impact on the environment, nature and workers here and globally. Yet many practical supply chain initiatives focus on local and higher value items like horticulture and speciality meat – this is important but missing the big impact.
More understanding and transparency in these chains (origins, costs, profits, environmental impact, workers) would be a start but should not be the end point of any campaign which needs to demand company law changes to cut impact. Choosing to investigate one commodity and possibly one chain/merchant who supplies too many of UK supermarkets would be invaluable as a case study. BUT they are not well known to the public so have little reputational risk – so choosing a single supermarket to target as the mapping suggested, can be very effective. A key issue is that the bulk of commodities are used in processed foods, so it is hard to track to individual items like a cake or a ready meal. But it should be possible with the right resources and expert analysis. This needs a lot of resources to track items globally.
1 A public engagement strategy could include for instance – writing/meeting with their MP (with a farmer ideally) to ask them to support stronger regulations e.g. on the GCA; could ask them to use social media saying how they want regulations to ensure their local supermarket pays fair and photograph their receipt; asking the public to do citizen survey of the shop offers for instance to survey the supermarket offer for one common item and could measure it against known cost of sustainable production - with a tool online (or an app) and send their findings in to an NGO to collate and campaign with; and could do government petitions to push for MP debate..
Collaborative farm and trading approaches (collaborations in buying or selling, cooperatives, CICs)
This could be a key opportunity for change and EFF is supporting several good initiatives showing proof of concept Cooperation between farmers and growers and with better traders, more routes to market, should be a focus as they need more power to grow their market share. This was a strong message in the stakeholder mapping. Farmers unions are not doing the work needed. The Royal Agricultural University report in 2019 looked at opportunities for farmer cooperation in the UK and has valuable recommendations.ii
Supporting a scale up of collaborative approaches could make a huge difference to farmer power. Sustain noted that Co-op farming constitutes only 6% of our domestic agricultural market, compared with 45% in Spain, 55% in France and 68% in the Netherlands. The need to have more circular approaches to resource use and innovation does also require collaboration which should be nurtured by government.
Climate emergency is a crisis and threat but also an opportunity. The opportunity is to present the case for better, fairer supply chains that demonstrably create resilience by supporting nature-based farming, resilient supply chains and social goals. For supply chains the threat is very much evident, but many commentators play this down assuming and suggesting that most corporations can get by with spreading their risks and with technological innovations.
Tackling public and private standards
Work is needed to address private standards such as cosmetic appearance, that drive so much chemical use, costs, and wastage. The research identified some, but it’s a huge area and often commercially protected. This is a big nut to crack and campaigns so far have had mixed results with food ‘waste’ becoming food bank fodder largely. We should be campaigning for a review of current government food standards to remove the inherent waste involved and set new mandatory criteria for industry on quality but also ensure risk and effort is not all placed on farmers and growers, who clearly can’t take this on.
Identify and use cross linkages with dietary and health and consumer concerns.
There is an opportunity here to find common cause and build up greater, more diverse pressure for change by policy makers by linking nature and health goals –showing mutual solutions. Food and farming resilience is multifaceted and needs multiple actions in several key policy areas (health, planning, farm, trade, marketing, environment regulations) to deliver.
But, this is not easy - narrow issue campaigns tend to dominate and the media and politicians like the clarity which single issue campaigns deliver. This means the bigger impact from using stronger convening power, engagement reach (millions of members of conservation NGOs for instance) and political power that comes with a bigger alliance.
Yet, there is appetite now in some NGOs to make the health and environmental links (as Sustain has always done) more closely with common solutions - one ripe for this area is with UPF/junk food – food reliant on low-cost commodities which are so harmful. This could mean action on marketing and advertising which drives the consumption of these despite clear harm to health, (and less obvious harm to nature). Farmers too are getting more open about how UPFs are not serving them well. Other mutual areas are water pollution, antibiotics and industrial meat production. But we can now make the case that unwell consumersiii and struggling farmers are created from the same source in our campaigns, narrative development and research which I believe would lead to stronger and more diverse alliances.
Working at EU and global levels and with partners
For many of these challenges, we need to look beyond UK as this is a global system, and so we need to work on solutions that can be taken up by or are already being run by campaigners e.g. in the EU. The research identified several key legislative and political opportunities to track (see Appendix) and join with, though there are also similar challenges of powerful lobbying by food industry and complex dominant supply chains. A key area to look to is the EU Unfair Trading Practices Directive (UTPD) - a relatively new measure and a major evaluation, which will take place in 2025, will be the moment to reflect on the possible need to adjust the Directive itself and its parameters in terms of the scope or practices at stake. However, it already undertakes annual assessments. Regular supplier surveys reveal a consistently high level of unfair trading practices and smaller businesses (which would be a significant farmer level) feel the least protection from unfair practices.
4. Main opportunities for progress
There are several routes to ensure supply chains can deliver for nature, climate and a societally better farming and food system. Key tools such as better regulation to achieve fair dealing are indirect routes - they recognise that farmers being squeezed on prices, specification and delivery will not be able to focus on regenerative, nature friendly practices and planning. They do not ensure the results we need but are foundational for building on other tools.
Wider more difficult tools, such as changing pricing and fiscal rules to shift purchasing, focusing on commodity prices and impacts, building alternative routes to market and policies to support them, and many more, will take more time but are listed. Without a bigger longer-term focus, we will continue to fight the symptoms not the causes of harm to farmed environments and society.
Following the interviews and research, a three-pronged approach is suggested as areas for EFF support.
a) Immediate i.e. 2025/6 priorities for influencing regulation and policies.
b) Longer-term campaigns and activities
c) Strategic research priorities that could help drive campaigns and political action
This is laid out first in terms of the kinds of activities, campaigns and tools needed and then divided into the following opportunities and subdivided into possible easy wins and more challenging goals:
i. Influencing regulation and policy
ii. Parliamentary action, lobbying MPs and peers
iii. Local government Action and lobbying
iv. Driving food industry leadership i.e. voluntary action
v. Wider civil society action and communications
vi. Using EU and global opportunities
4.1 Tools: Strategic actions/tactics that need supporting now
Some relevant and immediate political advocacy (parliamentary and policy) opportunities have arisen in 2025. To try and influence these EFF should be supporting:
Fund a strengthened Alliance on supply chains (coordination and resources) so it can effectively lobby MPs and Government on key areas up for review.
This will not be easy as will be up against world disorder, food price rises/ instability, and vested interests influencing new governments. We need a large, broad alliance with resources. This means supporting a lead NGO and helping all types of farmer and public engagement; generating greater action on all these opportunities.
An alliance was created to influence the creation of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which the Author ran for many years. It is now run by Sustain. The Groceries Code Action Network (GCAN) is a coalition of food and farming organisations committed to advocating for a fair and equitable food supply chain that upholds the dignity and livelihoods of farmers and producers, both domestically and internationally. It has played a critical role in ensuring that unfair practices in the supply chain are challenged and that regulatory mechanisms, such as the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), and the new Defra Agriculture Supply Chain Adjudicator (ASCA) are robust, effective, and properly enforced. More alliance resources will help to ensure the alliance has strong convening power – Organising high-impact meetings, roundtables, and policy forums to engage policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society.; stronger comms to media and public and a far wider public engagement needed to put pressure on MPs
Fun key, novel, and high impact research
See section 4.2.3 below
Funding advocacy work, parliamentary lobbyists staff and time
We need to mobilise MPs and key decision-makers to push for legislative and regulatory reforms to achieve fairness in the food supply chain. Key activities EFF could support include:
• Political mapping of the opportunities, allies, opposition in this area would be invaluable given the change of government and focus on growth etc (see People first: selling nature to Labour, 2025 by Green Alliance)
• Events such as parliamentary meetings, briefings, media briefings and tools, comms and providing submissions and oral evidence if possible, will help maintain profile of the issues and push backbenchers and opposition MPs to support.
• Campaign materials and resources for events and travel (for instance for media, for farmers) to gain public and industry support for the lobby – this includes for Public action – such as MP letters and surgery visits from constituents. Meetings and local events such as with local Food Partnerships
• Involving farmer engagement, insight and activism – wherever possible amplifying ally farmers/farmer organisations, running surveys of farmer and grower experiences of supply chains and what they need, and neutering oppositional elements. Constituency work will be key here – NFFN, env NGOs and Sustainable Food Places can mobilise actors at constituency level.
• Build up to a moment at Party conferences 2025 with capacity/ new data/events with a strong focus on SC regulation to deliver multiple long-term targets. There may be a major ‘nature’ event at this time also where SC issues need to be brought to the fore not just regulation etc.
• Using the EU UTP evidence base showing results and its 2025 review as opportunity to build links and common cause with EU farmers and show opportunity for supporting agroecological farmers in EU supplying UK.
4.2 Opportunities
4.2.1 Support Easy wins / timely actions in 2025/6
Right now, the opportunity – using the above tools - is strong to influence
1. Direct supply chain regulation
2. New, wider policy initiatives of the new government
3. Parliamentary scrutiny by MPs and opposition parties
4. The climate agenda should be an opportunity to lobby for supply chain action
Supply Chain regulation 2025/6 opportunities
These regulations that help stop abuse in food supply chains could work far better as there are gaps in coverage and weaknesses in both regulations (see diagram below) Opportunities now include:
a) The new ASCA draft legislation on pork (and soon eggs and horticulture) –alliance of NGOs and farmers need to have resources to engage with the ASCA and examine the draft legislation and influence amendments.
b) The GCA is up for its 3-yearly review – this will be announced in the end of April 2025 - which provides a fresh opportunity to expose shortcomings, push for stronger action and less compliance work, and for better links to the ASCA. The Alliance would need to develop and present evidence-based research to demonstrate how the GCA is currently failing and impact that’s having on farming system and the government’s progress towards its EIP targets. This could link to efforts in the EU with the Unfair Trading Practices Directive (UTPD) review results.
c) Pushing for an urgent joint review by DEFRA & DBT on how fairness in the food supply chain can be improved. This would include a comprehensive consultation on the scope, function, and funding of the GCA, the ASCA, how they must work together and wider supply chain regulations. Developing a legally tested policy framework that addresses existing gaps and ensures better enforcement which can be easily implemented by government.
d) Food waste transparency law campaign – almost got in in 2024. Needs a final push as well as possible labelling legislation
e) Build up to a moment at Party conferences with capacity/ new data/events with a strong focus on SC regulation to deliver multiple long-term targets. There may also be a major ‘nature’ event/moment at this time also where SC issues need to be brought to the fore not just nature regulations etc.
Influence new government policy processes and consultations
These are new policy initiatives which need to include reference to how supply chains need to be changed and the opportunities to do so made clear. They will be very hard to influence given the state of farmer-government trust and the lack of public finances. But that does mean ministers are very open to supply chain ideas. This would involve work behind the scenes to influence civil servants and ministers, but also to make public (media, via members etc) the case for considering nature and environment as key outcomes
Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, has declared farm profitability a priority, signalling a policy window for structural improvements. The fiscal squeeze is getting tighter so there is less money for payments under farm schemes (possibly even less after June Comprehensive Spending Review) so other tools, including supply chain support, are definitely of interest. The government has acknowledged supply chain fairness in its farming communications but has yet to enact the kind of robust, unified policy needed to drive systemic change.
Farming Roadmap: More details on a Defra 25-year roadmap to 2050 to be discussed in the coming weeks, and the goals would be to make sure this must include supply chain measures/regulation. It does seem to prioritise policies that ensure the supply chain takes on more responsibility and accountability for farmer livelihoods and environmental improvements.
Food Strategy: Defra announced plans for a new strategy. An Advisory Board has been published and it is not good news – so campaigning could go several ways with linkages to nature and environment made clear and relationship to cheap raw materials for UPF and the impact of industrial farming causing air pollution and toxic wastes. More of a hook to publicise failings now.
4.2.2
Land Use Strategy: Currently in consultation to end of April. If done properly, it would include need for demand side measures so land use could be sustainable, fair etc including land allocated for restoring nature, for vital renewable infrastructure and housing, and farmland sharing which means dietary change etc – which means supply chain demand side changes.
Food Data Transparency Partnership: Currently industry dominated, this could shift with the new government and a concerted lobby campaign.
Parliamentary scrutiny
MPs and MP committees have some influence over policy and can keep ministers to account. It’s a hard slog, however, so will need time and lobby experts. Key moments in 2025 are:
• the new EFRA MP inquiry into Fairness in the Supply Chain – followed last EFRA Inquiry – and will gain some coverage and impact.
• A large and influential Liberal Democrat base is invested in rural issues, with strong cross-party support for reform among backbench MPs. There is also a strong interest in rural issues from across political parties. The LD chair of the EFRA committee recently tabled a Backbench Bill on supply Chain Fairness.
• Westminster debates on farming futures – these are common right now and can get supply chain issues in there.
A Climate agenda to influence
The Committee on Climate change Carbon Budget 7 was announced in February (and the Climate adaptation report will be in early 2026) which looked at land-based emissions (as well as industry, including the food industry) more prominently. The government must respond. This presents an opportunity for a lobby to change the narrative on how supply chains influence these and what needs to be done. As the CCC note in their recent CB7, the food share of UK GHG will increase in terms of share overall of the UK GHG inventory as other sectors rapidly decline like energy and transport.
The global Climate COP in Brazil (the United Nations Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC) in November – will be another opportunity to try and ensure the narrative on food systems is strong and that it includes reference to supply chain impacts and solutions.
Longer term, challenging projects Esmée could support
Beyond 2025/6, the EFF could deliver valuable impact via the following campaigns and activities in the UK:
1. Supporting a critical new evidence base: [See research proposals 4.2.3 below] to provide a powerful and visual exposé of supply chain harm - showing the impact on farmers, workers, nature, consumers, climate, rivers etc – which
all help drive public and media interest, political opposition and backbench) pressure and can drive action.
2. Support existing and new campaign partnerships and alliances longterm: as it’s clear that this has been the route to success in most instances. That does not rule out single organisational campaigns which can contribute to the campaign plan (e.g. targeting one company) but we need broad and large membership to wield the kind of public engagement and media response to get attention. The recent work by Riverford with partners in exposing supermarket behaviour (two campaigns so far) has been a valuable one, generated an important parliamentary debate and was a partnership between trade, farmer and NGO groupings (though NFU would not join).iv
3. Campaigns to strengthen UK supply chain regulations and processes: Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA at Business and Trade Dept) and Agricultural Supply Chains Adjudicator (ASCA at Defra) – need to be stronger and able to consolidate their work. We may achieve some in 2025/6 but it is unlikely, so long-term lobbying and communication is needed. (see BOX How the Supply chains regulations must be strengthened)
4. Labelling and transparency measuring issues: following campaigns led by CLEAR Alliance and others there is general acceptance that we need a holistic, transparent and consistent farm-led Method of Production data to drive supply chain action, transparency and market support across all UK food (see the recent review of ecolabels) v There is also acknowledgement that the means for collecting this data is currently inadequate but also that the current proposed use of secondary modelled data is not good enough and its adoption will fail to support farmers changing to nature friendly farming methods and will drive people towards industrial farming methods and away from agroecologically produced products. We need a consistent unified voice on this for regulated food industry processes to measure and communicate products' environmental and social attributes – on both UK products and imports. There is an alliance of NGOs calling for a new UK law - UK Business, Human Rights and Environment Act- that requires companies to avoid harm to people and planet in their supply chains – stronger than existing UK legislation. Food campaigners should join this call and using the research to show commodities affect production systems and nature.
How the Supply chains regs must be strengthened
a) Expand the scope of the GCA so more retailers and other buyers come under its scope. Ensure the GCA has more tools, less of a ‘collaborative approach’, and feels more able and inclined (via ministerial direction) to use its fining power. A good suggestion also is that it should establish deputy adjudicators within the GCA, with a GSCOP+ code designed for business-business relationships within the supply chain that ultimately supply the 14 largest retailers. This could be done using powers the government already has under the GCA Act (2013) and is an approach akin to that the EU Unfair Trading Practices Directive has taken to develop a code which needs to be followed by all Member States. The Grocery Code alliance GCAN coordinated by Sustain could lead and work to get others - NFU tricky sometimes but Tennant Farmers Association (TFA) and other farmer groups will support. This will need to build cross party supportbackbench or more- to get DBT to widen the scope of GCA work (which would involve new secondary legislation probably) - could be pushed during the 3 year review - the consultation must start 31 march - and will be narrow but if we built up enough political support (via public campaigns and behind scene lobby) could push for a broader remit to be included.
b) Campaign to tackle the culture of fear (where farmers can’t complain to the adjudicators because they fear they will be delisted as their buyers will very easily assess who the complainant is) by having the GCA and ACSA run random checks and research on their own initiative into abuse and investigate Code breaches they identify. Another suggestion is that the farmer unions could be ‘super’ complainants’ collating information which the GCA and ASCA could then investigate. as it’s clear that so far that farmer representatives have lacked sufficient power or ability to make effective representation. This has precedent in competition policy but legal expertise is needed to assess whether that is possible.
c) Ensure Regulatory Cohesion across departments so reduce likelihood of harmful outcomes. The DEFRA adjudicator (ASCA) may be able to address the farmers’ experience of some unfair trading practices, but if the cause of that unfair trading practice originated with the major food retailers covered by the GCA, the retailers could continue to get away with passing on unfair trading practices (which breach GSCOP) as the evidence of harm beyond direct suppliers is not available. See Joint Briefing on Supply Chain Fairness by the Groceries Code Action Network (GCAN)
5. Start a campaign on commodities – impacts and key players: Exposing commodity impacts (focussing on one very significant one like wheat or a few key commodities strategically picked, to illustrate the problems) and who finances the trading in them (particularly speculators) would be valuable as rules on financial speculators have been weakened in past 25 years and that has had an impact on prices and therefore producers. When food prices threaten food security globally such as in 2007/8 and after the Ukraine invasion, major food trading firms profit by betting on the direction of food prices by storing or trading substantial amounts of goods – making big financial gains as a result. The global green beans expose Feedback Global didvi was very useful in showing such chains are wasteful and harmful and had some impact (though voluntary) but more is needed as well as constant scrutiny.
6. Build up legal expertise and strong lobby skills for changes in the law on key areas: this could be on contractual, competition, labelling, transparency, subsidies, trade core standards and protection for agroecological farmers, avoiding competition rules in green collaboration, use the Arhus convention on public right to know; a ban on loss leaders. Specific suggestions include:
a) Run a campaign to introduce a local Competition test into planning processes – to reduce likelihood of multiple retail gaining greater national and local market share and allow for local food retail diversity. This could involve working with campaigners on the national Planning Policy Framework (currently under review) NPPF and wider planning policy at local and national level. This could build on support for local/regional food systems- breaking the barriers.
b) Support campaigns for mandatory transparency and labelling - including for imports and a impose more stringent bans on greenwashing in food that currently exists. The European Union is introducing regulations to combat greenwashing, and companies face potential penalties of up to 4% of their annual revenue. One piece of work could be to really demonstrate if these help or hinder, and press for a holistic range of primary farm-level measures that can be demonstrated via data (without all the costs being put on the farmer), such as biodiversity restoration, positive animal welfare, net zero carbon emissions and social impacts, rather than single measures such as carbon emissions, proxy measures (such as land use as a measure of negative biodiversity impact) or ‘secondary’ modelled or country-level data that does not reflect the actual outcomes on farm. Eaters must be given genuine and honest options not just choices they cannot access or afford.
c) Support campaigns for stronger laws on company duties and responsibilities for climate and nature impacts of their supply chain. Part of this could be to undertake work on one or two key global food commodity traders and food speculators regulation – to expose issues and then call for far stronger. transparency and reporting rules
d) Investigate the political and legal potential for a floor price in food to reflect cost of sustainable production – how could it work? Look at the
French model being proposed. This will be a hard sell but possibly easier as climate change impacts on imports and UK production. Start the debate, do some modelling, test the approach on political parties and key players.
e) Support campaigns for taxes on food waste/surplus generation and on chemicals in food systems including pesticides and artificial fertilisers focussing ways to make sure the tax is falling on the buyers not producers.
f) campaigns on other relevant areas such as trade policy - Labour state they will ensure no lower standards on imports but have not delivered (e.g. no ban or duties on foods produced using banned neonicotinoid pesticides) - and public food procurement policy (demand new high standards in law and practice – Labour have promised action but not yet delivered so there is an opening). This needs to be more than local food in public procurement i.e. a legal and enforced nature or environmental standard or accreditation.
7. Funding disrupters, and local campaigning opportunities: how can local agents deliver change. This could be a useful tool to work with local food partnerships, local nature friendly farmers and consumer and nature/environment groups in coalition driving values-based food systems locally and regionally.
Sustainable Food Places - a network of over 110 food partnerships across the UK working towards creating more sustainable local food systems – should be a key route. Some SFP work is really gaining traction e.g. Brighton & Hove FP, Leeds food Hubs, Greater Lincs Food Partnership and there is much appetite in the SFP movement for more in this area. But farmer links need to be strengthened which takes time and funding (for instance for farmer attendance). SFP have limited capacity and often have to focus on one issue (such as health and food access) so support to both build the alliances with farmers and growers and make inroads into the retail system is needed.
• EFF could support the creation of broad, and active local coalitions, high street campaigns, local food poverty and health groups, conservation groups driving new food options to challenge existing dominant models and to demand policy changes, such as planning - possibly with new mayoralties coming into place with devolution.
• Farmer collaboration – as co-ops or public interest companies to share risk, develop farmer owned brands and engage collectively, rather than individually, with the markets they supply.
• Supporting new voices and diverse voices in the debate. The need for government and local government to hear from, and listen to the non-usual farm community voices, nature friendly farmers, and other opinions (including local experts, academics etc) on how land is farmed and used is key to change. For example, the work done by The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trusts on convening a new grouping to discuss land use changes. vii
• New campaign approaches to food system change campaigning and influence, particularly more unusual models using more visuals.
4.2.3 Research/evidence base needed to support the work above
1. Follow the Money: where it goes in the supply chain – details for conventional and non-conventional – and commodities, and link this to impact. This could also look at where true cost accounting campaigns have failed and why, and could also examine models used elsewhere such as minimum/floor pricing which is being discussed in Europe but is politically extremely difficultviii
• Data powers in Ag act not being used – could be used to show unfair power imbalances. The provision is there in the Agriculture Act 2020 (Part 3 on Transparency and fairness in the agri-food supply chain- on data collection and sharing “will help farmers and producers increase productivity, help producers to manage risk and market volatility, and support animal and plant health and traceability.”
• The role of finance and banks in delivering change – there have been moves (Lloyds, Green Finance Institute, British Business Bank, Oxbury Bank, and others including Soil Association Exchange, FFCC, Sustainable Markets Initiative etc) to identify the barriers for farm transformation and help farmers manage risk. Can this been expanded and enhanced? A significant proportion of farmers – 66.1% –agree or strongly agree that financial and business risks are barriers to transitioning to farming systems that prioritise climate and nature outcomes, with a further 13.8% undecided.ix Avoiding greenwashing will be key here.
• Higher nature friendly farmers such as organic are struggling now – yet the public assume they are getting premia to reflect their costs. This needs investigation as these are leading farmers demonstrating whole farm approaches and we need them to thrive.
2. Impact of Supply Chain behaviour on nature, ecosystems, food waste: we need more research on the impact of supply chain actions, policies, pricing on nature, society, communities, rural economy. Pure research, analysis, polling of farmers, all would be useful. This should include:
• Standards impact – there was a paucity of available data on the impact of supply chain standards and specifications (and wider treatment e.g. delivery times, labelling and packaging) on food production, and waste, state and market. Could look further at where the standards originate, why, and analysis of impact and how to influence change.
• Citizen research – Public trust in supermarkets is diminishing. A survey found that 67% of shoppers were frustrated to learn that the word ‘farm’ can be used by supermarkets, even when the food doesn’t come from a real farm. Furthermore, 74% of shoppers want more transparency about food origins. The lack of clarity is eroding trust among consumers which provides an opportunity.
• Could focus on horticulture and peat, as horticulture peat use has destroyed many valuable nature and carbon rich soils because supermarkets
and other buyers demand perfect looking veg from peat soils. How do we move away from these expectations? Do we leave it to supermarkets? There has long been poor voluntary approaches on peat so it's likely regulation, public incentives and training are needed including on public expectations on fresh produce.
3. The problems of now dominant food waste/food banks and commoditization of surplus: this is a big issue and well documented but recent initiatives have baked in the need for ‘surplus’ and it's not easy to find what that impact has on farm transition. Feedback Global and others are already exposing the poor impact but needs more resources to delve into the economics.
4. Pesticides and chemical use and reductions: the new ELMS financial rewards are inadequate and the brand-new Pesticides National Action Plan (was 7 years overduex) is a start but weak, so research on what better regulations and possible fiscal measures such as taxes will work and what will identify the supply chain drivers not just farmer action e.g. cosmetic standards.
5. International supply chain and commodity issues: are opaque and hard to research
• Getting a Closer look at commodities - what drives production and how is finance involved? How could UK commodity farmers gain better value and so improve production? One possibility would be to support an organisation to run a Chorleywood process option in a big bakery using an agroecologically sourced flour, as an example of showing that agroecological farming can produce ‘commodities’ that can work in large scale systems.
• Good legislation - More research in countries doing effective supply chain regulation and its impact on farmer decision making and practices, if any.
• Investigation into financial speculators’ role in price setting and impact.
6. Linking health and nature/environment outcomes and harmful drivers (there are papers linking organicxi and regenerative farmingxii to health outcomes – nutrients, antioxidants, removing toxins, antibiotic resistance, etc) – but little in UK defining the negative links directly with UPF with nature or carbon. There is evidence that we can feed ourselves using nature-friendly farming. The IDDRI research report commissioned for the UK modelled how we can feed ourselves well using agroecological, nature-friendly farming, whilst cutting GHG emissions by 50-70% and releasing 1.8 million hectares (10%) of current agricultural land for ecosystem restoration.xiii Modelling conducted by other organisations has led to similar conclusions.xiv,xv,xvi
But in each of these scenarios, achieving these outcomes depends on demandside action – i.e., removing wasteful uses of crops such as biofuels, reducing livestock feed demand, and shifting towards diets with fewer unsustainable foods including but not exclusively meat and dairy. A huge gap so far is being able to
understand the impact (and cost) of marketing and advertising – which drives consumption in the wrong direction for health and nature. It’s an area ripe for new investigations.
7. Citizen research: as above, citizen engagement could involve the use of them as supply chain researchers e.g. looking at prices in different shops, assessing how much imports (at time of seasonal availability) for instance. Could be turned into campaigns.
8. Building up alternatives /new routes to market at scale - Local supply chains policy needs: Measures that local authorities and national government could take, for instance low business rates, or zero business rates, free premises or peppercorn premises for better food trader type operations trading nature friendly foods, changed planning rules and permitted development rights that favour shorter, values-based food chains. A Sustain/RSPB report suggested a shift of 10% of retail market share into sustainable, local food businesses could create 200,000 more jobs, support a green economic recovery, and restore nature.
9. Peri-urban supply and demand: There is also a good opportunity to gain broad benefits from a growth in peri-urban and urban agroecological enterprises close to large markets, although there is a need for capital investment and supportive planning rules for local infrastructure to support shorter supply chains, including storage and processing facilities.
5. Challenging some assumptions about supply chains
EFF should look to support work that challenges assumptions that keep the status quo and suit slow action, including:
That Voluntary measures will sort these issues
Voluntary approaches (by industry with and without public sector support) are not enough and campaigns to get them will not change the underlying problems. We have many voluntary approaches e.g. food industry Courtauld Commitment on food waste, taking peat out of horticulture, sector partnerships such as milk buying groups, codes (such as Red Tractor), measuring carbon and now some that purport to deliver nature outcomes such as the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI)xvii , and supermarket health targets.
Many have failed badly over many years. In 2015 the RSPB reviewed over 150 voluntary measures - Over 80 per cent were found to perform poorly on at least one of three performance indicators.xviii Most of the voluntary initiatives are not underpinned by a legal framework (unlike standards like Organic), ambition led by supply chain demands not societal, enforcement can be weak and is often high-profile greenwashing.
That the current UK supply chains are economically efficient
The existing food distribution and retail system appears efficient, effective and affordable “UK retail sector is one of the most competitive and innovative in the world” (Grocer 2023). It is not. Most interviewees highlighted the need for more economic analysis of different supply chains, taking account of different cost structures and values, and transparency rules leading to more true cost accounting.
The playing field is not level for alternative, better traders. Major retailers, including online, benefit from lower taxation (e.g. high business rates on high street stores, no business rates for online retail, free car parking on out-of-town car parks compared to in town parking), cheap imports produced to lower standards, economies of scale and purchasing power, beneficial treatment in crises (e.g. Covid). We need to push for new tools for more rewarding, non-corporate trading options, such as low or zero business rates, free premises or peppercorn premises for better food trader type operations trading nature friendly foods. We need to support initiatives that test new supply chain models.
That labelling is enough rather than full SC transparency
Labelling is another approach that is popular and part of the picture but needs to be rooted in transparency and supply chain measures not merely consumer information. The risk of greenwashing is high. A new review by CLEAR labelling coalition shows that environmental labels (ecolabels) are largely unregulated, and without common standards and minimum operating criteria, there is ample room for disinformation. There is widespread concern about the potential for food ecolabels to exaggerate or falsely claim the environmental benefits and conversely, to underplay or conceal the environmental harms relating to the production of food products.xix
Food labels should mandatorily, showing the whole cycle of food production - from farm (or lab), right through to the final manufacturing process. This should ensure that sustainable farming is better rewarded in the marketplace through driving far more transparency and make value chains far more open to public scrutiny. This is not easy however as many campaigns have found. CLEAR has reviewed the current state of play -Worldwide, there are over 450 ecolabels in 199 countries in 25 industry sectors, with 147, mostly specialist, labels on food. There is a lack of agreed general standards for ecolabelling of food meaning that there is no consistent benchmark. This presents a risk of misinformationxx which needs to be campaigned against alongside lobbying for robust regulation covering the whole chain.
As noted above one opportunity right now is the new Food Data transparency Partnership (an initiative led by Defra and industry following the Dimbleby National Food Strategy) which needs to include civil society and independent experts – right now it is industry dominated. Several metrics have been developed over the past years that could provide the legal baseline for data as they cover the full range of issues –such as the Global Farm Metric and Soil Association Exchange.
That competition policy can sort this- it's part of the solution
Competition policy will be one key part of the solution as described above, (especially GCA/ASCA functionality and strength), and looking at wider options e.g. minimum pricing, loss leaders, mergers and transparency, collaboration for green outcomes (which the Competition and Markets Authority was working on). It needs to be in the mix. But the problems need wider action on a range of policy areas and to build up better supply chains as proof of concept (and campaigns to stop barriers to these). One interviewee suggested we need ‘equitable profitability’ which should be a goal but goes against conventional market economics.
That we can sort this at UK level
We can pioneer approaches and have done (the UK Groceries Code initiative2 helps drive the EU Unfair Trading Practices Directive work) and can achieve some goals. But we need to look beyond UK as any solution proposed here would be undermined/not considered if not EU wide. And the way in which food companies have set up national and cross border collaboration (to improve economies of scale, reduce transactional costs etc) allows them to reinforce their dominant position alongside strong lobbies to weaken legislation. This can be ‘buyer groups’ or ‘buying alliances’ which reduce options for suppliers and so increases the buyer power of those participating. If we wanted legislation, for instance floor prices for foods, we need cross border alliances and pressure.
Such huge campaigns are hard to do but existing networks are already active (e.g. Friends of the Earth Europe, Via Campesina). We need to ensure any work does not pit EU and non-EU farmers against each other, but which puts the spotlight on how many farmers around the world are victims of the same systematic power imbalances and situations of precarity. But emotion/politics and not rationale/evidence tend to drive many political decisions, so we need a mix of both and not to wait for huge internationally focussed ‘evidence’ base if opportunities arise. The Toxic Trade work of Pan-UK and partners is a good example.xxi It was sound data but also accessible and fast to take advantage of the political opportunities.
2 It is worth noting that to get the GCA legislation etc – too huge NGO work over 8 years, huge public and media engagement (using Tesco rapid growth as ‘baddie’), and major cross party lobby campaign.
Appendix
List of consultees
15 people were interviewed or filled in a detailed questionnaire over a period of 2 months at the end of 2024. The interviews were recorded, and some extracts are below. Common themes were collated into an overview.
Who was interviewed/filled questionnaire
• A large organic Farmer (wishes to remain anonymous)
• George Dunn – Tenant Farmers Association
• Fiona Gooch – Transform Trade
• NFU Annabel Bagshaw - Food Business Relationships Advisor
• Dan Crossley - Food Ethics Council
• Jamie Bend – Head of Operations Groceries Code Adjudicator -Lead civil servant (at DBT)
• Will White, Head of Farming, Sustain Alliance
• Ruth Bergen - Transform Trade and formerly head of the UK Trade Network for many years
• Dr Carrie Bradshaw - Director of Community Engagement Lecturer in Law, University of Leeds
• Josiah Meldrum – Hodmedods and Barleybird – food trader
• Defra Agriculture Supply Chain Adjudicator team
• Dr Rosalind Sharpe Hertfordshire University - School of Life and Medical Sciences
• Julie Kirby-Smith – Exec. Director Better Food Traders (BFT)
• Kene Umeasiegbu - Responsible Sourcing Director at Tesco plc
• Sue Prichard and team – FFCC
A quick summary of the insight and ideas that came up in the mapping (more detail available on request).
1. Growing awareness – tap into that. Public support action – polling shows public want to see more fairness, with more equitable share of profits. FFCC polling shows 62% 62% want greater intervention
2. Strong support for initiatives that shorten the supply chain, such as local production, food hubs and community growing.
3. Long term pressure – as many of these issues are complex and involve systems that have been bedded in over decades with huge investment, so we need to be in it for the long haul with resources to campaign.
4. Links between supply chain regulation and wider impacts not researched enough
5. Standards and specifications – this is a huge area and needs attention but hard to cover
6. Wider than treatment at farm gate and commodities really need attentionConsolidation in food a big issue that leads to behaviours that harm so how do we tackle this?
7. Multifunctionality. The market and policies to regulate it fails to take account of the multifunctionality of farming and growing crops.
8. The current supply chain regulation and farm policy in the UK –“treating the symptoms of the problem that is retail power” – sub themes, gaps in the adjudicators, producer organisations; SI issue and lack of parliamentary oversight, ELM role.
9. Data and transparency and true cost accounting “Exposing this and demanding more information and scrutiny of returns by Government” – but also awareness that this has not always worked to change policy, need to identify why not.
10.Smaller scale agroecological farmers and small, values led traders need to be scaled out and barriers removed – key to showing what can work
11. A focus on Mental health issues in farming and consistently poor returns is needed.
12.Food waste - Mandatory food waste measurement and reporting is widely regarded as a pre-requisite for designing and evaluating interventions.
13.UK Global supply chain – needs more attention in relation to impacts on nature, ecosystems and workers and farmers.
14.Other country policies – EU is key though still bedding in. EU directive & new EU Observatory one to watch.
15.Research and case study needs – many suggestions were made
16.Coalitions are key - a core coalition of civil society is needed to leverage legislation effectively and provide on-going oversight.
List of overseas policies assessed
The research provided a short overview and looked at a range of approaches in different parts of the chain and gives an assessment of efficacy where available. It includes examples of policy interventions, and their impact where data was available from various countries, including:
• EU Unfair Trading Practices Directive: Aims to protect agricultural producers from unfair practices.
• Australian Dairy Code of Conduct: Ensures fair trading practices in the dairy sector.
• EU Agri-Food Chain Observatory: Increases transparency in the agri-food supply chain.
• Canadian Supply Management System: Controls production, imports, and prices of dairy and eggs.
• EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. Defines sustainable agricultural practices for investment.
The analysis suggests also that there is growing interest in and action on supply chain influences, but little evidence on impact beyond farmer/supplier experience so far i.e. nature impacts not yet known. As the impacts of their operations have grown alongside the climate
changing impacts and ecosystem failings, the pressure will grow for governments to take more action to control extractive operations and unfair activities and imbalances of power.
References
i Banking for Change 2024 – Soil association, British Business Bank, Green Finance Institute
ii Farmer cooperation in the UK: Opportunities for the industry, 2019 – Tom MacMillan & George Cusworth, Royal Agricultural University, for Co-operatives UK
iii The UK has the third highest volume sales of ultra-processed foods per capita out of 80 high- and middle-income countries, and the most processed diet of countries in Europe. This contributes to the 63% of UK adults being obese or overweight.
iv See Sustain launch E-action for upcoming parliamentary debate on fairness in the food supply chain, 2023; and Riverford demands an end to supermarket ‘farmwashing’, 2024
v A Methodological Review of UK Food Ecolabels - Key Takeaways For Agricultural Transitions, Environmental Targets, and Food Sovereignty, March 2025
vi Feedback: Stop dumping – Tesco changes rules on Kenyan green beans to cut food waste, 2016
vii The Wildlife Trusts: Local democratic outcomes for farming, nature and land use – a trial, 2024
viii IDDRI: Discussing floor prices – taking the debate on agricultural policies to the next level
ix Banking for Change 2024 – Soil association, British Business Bank, Green Finance Institute
x Pesticide Action Network UK: UK Pesticides Action Plan finally published – our initial response, 2025
xi National Library of Medicine: Organic food and health, 2020
xii EIT Food: Does regenerative agriculture produce healthier food, 2023
xiii IDDRI: Modelling an agroecological UK in 2050 – findings from TYFA-REGIO, 2021
xiv Evaluating spatially explicit sharing‐sparing scenarios for multiple environmental outcomes - Finch - 2021 - Journal of Applied Ecology - Wiley Online Library
xv Shaping UK Land Use – Lydia Collas and Dustin Benton for Green Alliance
xvi Land of Plenty: A nature positive pathway to decarbonise UK agriculture and land use –Alec Taylor for WWF UK
xvii Sustainable Markets: Private sector organisations launch new Sustainable Markets Initiative project with an ambition to scale regenerative farming globally, 2025
xviii The case for mandatory action to achieve transformational change in UK food – new Briefing March 2025 by Eating Better
xix A Methodological Review of UK Food Ecolabels - Key Takeaways For Agricultural Transitions, Environmental Targets, and Food Sovereignty, March 2025
xx Regulatory Tools for a Healthy and Sustainability Diet - Chris Hilson, Christine Riefa and Kyriaki Noussia, University of Reading, School of Law 21 August 2024 – to be published
xxi Pesticide Action Network UK: Toxic Trade