This week, guest presenter, food writer, chef, founder of Wahaca restaurants, and trustee of Chefs in Schools, Thomasina Miers asks what opportunities the current fruit and veg shortages could offer to build resilience into our broken food system in the UK.

The Food Foundation has recently published a series of briefings in collaboration with a team of researchers from the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) consortium. They explore the opportunities of growing and eating more fruit and veg in the UK and its impact on our health, the environment and our food security.

We hear from Ali Capper, chair of British Apples and Pears, Guy Singh-Watson of Riverford Organics. Martin Emmett, chair of the National Farmer's Union's Horticultural and Potatoes Board, James Woodward from Sustain and Anna Taylor, the Food Foundation's executive director.

For more information on the work The Food Foundation does with SHEFS, click here

For The Food Foundation's snap analysis Quick Bites series on YouTube, click here

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This week, Sophie Lawrence, Stewardship and Engagement Lead at Rathbone Greenbank Investments is our guest presenter. She was one of the guests who spoke at The Food Foundation’s Investor Summit, Putting Money on the Menu, which was the first of its kind to explore how the investment community can transform the UK food system.

Following the UN Food Systems Summit and the release of the National Food Strategy in 2021, an Investor Coalition on Food Policy was created, initially set up by Rathbone Greenbank, with support from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation and the Food Foundation. The Coalition, which now represents over 20 investors with over £6 trillion in assets under management is focused on the UK to begin with and exists to harness the power of the investment community to engage with policymakers on food policy. 

Sophie finds out what investors could mean to the future of the food system, with Tim Benton from the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House, Jessica Attard from ShareAction, Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl, Secretary-General at the Vegetarian Society of Denmark and Director of Policy Initiatives at the International Vegetarian Union, Morten Fenger of Organic Plant Protein in Denmark and Stuart Lendrum, head of product and process at Iceland. 

To find out more about the Coalition, click here

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This week, Melissa Hemsley, food writer, chef and sustainability champion, joins the Food Foundation podcast to look at the factors that can stop women getting healthy food when they're pregnant and when they're planning to be.

The Food Foundation's latest report Preconception, Pregnancy and Healthy Weight in Childhood shows how much a child’s health is influenced before conception, in the womb, and how a child is predisposed to obesity if their parents, especially their mother is living with obesity. We meet mums and food workers from around the country who describe what it's like to try to feed your unborn and newborn child when transport and the cost of living crisis makes access and affordability just two of the biggest deterrents to a healthy diet.

Nutritionist and one of the authors of the report, Jenny Rosborough outlines its main findings, while Jeni Meadows of the Food Justice Partnership at Lancaster City Council, Lucy Jackman of Feeding Bristol and Natasha Ricketts from the Evelyn Community Centre in Lewisham introduce us to some of the mums who need the most help.

Check out the report here which urges Government to do more to address health inequalities and improve the food environment, particularly for families and parents on a low income. Rates of overweight and obesity in pregnant women increase as the level of deprivation increases. Women living in the most deprived areas are more likely to be underweight or are living with obesity.

The report draws attention to the fact that, while Government has acknowledged the need to reduce levels of childhood obesity, more than 1 fifth of children aged four and five start school in England with overweight or obesity (22.2%). These rates are more than twice as high in children living in the most deprived areas compared to the least.

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In this episode, we’re at the front line of food insecurity as we visit some of the food banks feeding migrants and asylum seekers who don’t have recourse to public funds this Christmas.

We’re looking at the key findings of a new report by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire and commissioned by the Food Foundation. It shows a pretty bleak Christmas for over a million migrants and asylum seekers waiting for their legal status to be approved.

The Food Foundation wants the Healthy Start food voucher scheme to be made permanent, and to actively promote access to it among families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)

We want the Government to provide local authorities with the resources they need to ensure families with no recourse to public funds to get the support they need. And that includes accommodation with adequate kitchen and cooking facilities for asylum seekers. And we want the govt to collect data to establish real levels of food insecurity among families and individuals with NRPF.

Listen to why it matters with Claire Thompson at University of Hertfordshire, Ray Woolford from We Care at Kath's Place, Juliet Sekitoleko at Brighton Minority and Ethnic Community Partnership

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This week, Dev looks back at the Food Foundation's Feed the Future event which promoted the super powers of free school meals to a hall full of MPs, campaigners and celebrity chefs.

800,000 children live in poverty in the UK, but because they’re not poor enough, they’re not entitled to free school meals. The threshold is just £7400 per household after benefits, yet expanding free school meals to all children from households who get Universal Credit would reach all these children in poverty.

As the influencer guests sat down for a Chefs in School dinner served by Tom Kerridge and Melissa Hemsley, and with young people who’ve experienced first-hand just how important free school meals are, the chat was enlightening for everyone.

Write to your MP in seconds to ask for free schools for all children who need it by clicking on this link

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Accompanying the publication this week of the Food Foundation's annual State of the Nation report, we look at how the Out of Home sector is woefully behind in setting health targets, and providing healthier food options for the vast number of people - including children - who eat out regularly.

Presented by Food Foundation young food ambassador, Saf, we hear from Sainsbury's, Eating Better and the Soil Association about why mandatory reporting on access to healthy and affordable food when we're out and about is so important.

For full details of the report, click here

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In this episode, Yumna, one of our young food ambassadors takes us to her home town of Birmingham and the Commonwealth Food Futures 2022 conference where 20 cities around the world showcase their plans to transform the food system. 

Yumna speaks to Dr David Nabarro, co-leader of the United Nation's Global Crisis Response Group, nurse, midwife, activist and the first female Foreign Minister of Somaliland from 2003 to 2006, Dr Edna Adan Ismail and Dr Justin Varney from Birmingham City Council. We hear from people leading change in thinking and practice from Malawi to Gujerat and Namibia, while Leyla Kazim from BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme who was hosting the day reflects on how much she's learned.

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This week, sisters Laiba and Rushda, two of the Food Foundation's newest young ambassadors, report on how learning to cook, eating fresh food and growing it in nursery and pre-school gardens could help to transform our food culture and the nation’s health.

At Crookfur Family Centre in Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, they find how kids learn to play with broccoli trees in the dinosaur sand pit, run a pretend grocer’s shop, create art projects with vegetables and sing vegetable songs as part of a Nourish Scotland and Peas Please pilot. And at Maple Tree nursery and pre-school in Walsall, Laiba and Rushda find out how the Soil Association's Food for Life programme has created a food-centred environment for the whole family.

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This week, Jani looks at how a Good Food Bill could create a more resilient system, feeding people better and future-proofing food insecurity in the UK as we face a massive rise in the cost of living, food shortages, energy hikes and climate change. The waters are getting very choppy for all of us. But for some of the most vulnerable, it's really scary. 

Isabel Hughes from The Food Foundation and Pete Ritchie of Nourish Scotland explore what a Good Food Bill could do for the most vulnerable. Mum of four, Kathleen, and Jani and her uni house mates report from the front line of food insecurity.

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This week, we’re looking at Levelling Up, the Government's plan to equal out the differences between north and south to help towns recover from decades of poverty. Asha, one of the Food Foundation's teenage ambassadors, finds out what that means in her home town of Barrow-in-Furness on the North West coast.

Once known as the Chicago of England, Barrow was the largest iron and steel producer in the world and is still an important shipyard. Asha finds out what the issues are, and finds some inspiring projects already being supported by local government. Could the closed down shops in hollowed out high streets become food hubs in a new vision of food as central to community life?

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