Experts say, the pandemic has exposed the extraordinary fragility of the food system. And they worry whether it will withstand the growing pressures expected in the coming weeks and months.
Supermarket distribution systems, based on “just in time” supply chains, are struggling to cope with a sudden surge in demand since Covid-19 took hold. The most pressing concern is finding a way to feed the country’s most vulnerable and isolated people.
Some 17 million people fall into the higher risk category for coronavirus because they are elderly, have underlying health conditions, or are pregnant. At least 860,000 people in this category were already struggling to afford enough food before the crisis. And at least 1 million of them report always or often being lonely, and therefore may struggle to find people to deliver food to them.
Between 4 million and 7 million people in lower risk categories are also affected by severe food insecurity or loneliness, so having to self-isolate could tip them into crisis.
Anna Taylor, the Food Foundation’s director, said, “These numbers show the massive scale of the food aid challenge from Covid-19.”
Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, London, and a former government adviser, said ministers have worked on the assumption that feeding Britain can be left to the market and big retailers. Lang argues they are failing to grasp the structural weaknesses in the food system and the scale of food poverty.
“Some £1bn extra food and groceries were bought by households in the last two to three weeks. That’s like Christmas but worse because it’s gone on for three times as long,” said Andrew Opie, director of food at the British Retail Consortium, the supermarket trade association. The problem, Opie says, is “sheer logistics”. There is food, but not the capacity in terms of trucks, drivers, packers and pickers in warehouses to deliver it faster. “…supermarkets will not look the way they did in 2019 for the foreseeable future,” Opie added.
“Food banks will not be able to cope with the extremely high level of need and are not the answer when people are being asked to minimise contact with others,” said Kath Dalmeny, head of Sustain, the food and farming alliance. “The most important thing is for the government to staunch the flow of people needing food aid by giving low-income households money directly to buy it for themselves.”
The government initiative of food parcels for the vulnerable is expected to go out soon to about 300,000 people identified from prescriptions, but the Food Foundation said these represented just “the tip of the iceberg” of need. The government has also been working on a scheme for parents of the 1.6 million children who had been on free school meals, with vouchers which can be redeemed in supermarkets. Campaigners, however, argue the vouchers should be usable for nutritionally-balanced meals from school kitchens, which could be kept open. They point out that this would also make use of the tonnes of food that got stuck in the wholesale system when companies that supply pubs, bar, cafes and restaurants were forced to close and lost their business overnight. This stock cannot be diverted to retailers because it is packed in bulk and labelled in the wrong way.