Sowing Seeds of Change: Love British Food's Vision

Derek Wright: 00:16

Welcome to the first official episode of Love British Foods podcast. Whether you're a foodie, a farmer, or just interested in the stories behind great British food, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Derek Wright, and today we have two special guests. The first, being a visionary and driving force behind love British food. It's my pleasure to welcome Alexia Robinson.

Alexia Robinson: 00:36

Thank you, Derek, it’s very exciting to be speaking to you on this, inaugural love British food podcast. Um, going to be very exciting to see how it develops. I can't believe that it's now 22 years ago that I set up love British food. and really, this podcast just sums up everything that the campaign's been about. It's just an opportunity to reach into communities around the country, to help people share stories about their love for British food. The way they bring British food to everyone in the area of the country where they live, to make it accessible and enjoyable for all. To get those farm to fork stories out there, to share gritty stories about people working in hospitals, care homes, NHS trusts, and, how they're working to establish supply chains. It's going to be brilliant, this, because looking back to when we started the event all those years ago, that was exactly what we were trying to do. We were looking for superstars around the country who were championing British food in a way that we now take for granted. But it just wasn't happening back then. And what the love British food campaign did was it gave them an umbrella to bring them all together. And of course, with a sort of crescendo of activity, every autumn with British food fortnight, the national food celebration, which takes place at the traditional time of celebrating the harvest. And has become the established celebration, of food on our national calendar.

Derek Wright: 02:21

We've spoken many times, Alexia, about food and farming, and it feels like there's a lot of change within the supply chain at the moment, and a lot of conversation about our, supply chain, certainly local. When you set up the British food, what would you say the purpose and the mission was?

Alexia Robinson: 02:40

Very simply to create a strong domestic market for British food that would give our farmers and food producers the confidence to continue to invest in farming, in food production, so that we have, you know, continue to have a superb supply of British food in this country. That sounds very simplistic, but we all know the conversations taking place around food security. We all know the pressures on our own domestic supply and on global supply and the challenges that are part of that and we all know that farmers are thinking, many are considering whether they want to carry on farming because of the many problems they face. And I think I have always felt very strongly that what I'm really trying to achieve with love British food is a campaign where we get the British public to actively be seeking out British food when they are shopping or when they are eating out. So that we have a robust domestic market, as I have said previously, gives our farmers the confidence to continue to invest in food production and keep our food security at the level it currently is and increase it, going forward. So that's what we set out to achieve and all the fun activities and we do have a lot of fun but the fun activities like British food fortnight, the gritty aim behind that is to help achieve it. And then of course we have very serious activities that are also aligned to that objective. our work in the public sector, in particular comes to mind with the industry working groups. We lead the national programme of farm visits, all crafted to create robust supply chains of British food, to introduce our farmers and suppliers to the leading buyers, in that particular instance in the public sector. But we also do work in hospitality and we're now expanding our retail activity again and just to create this vibrant, vibrant market for British food. And I suppose at a sort of subliminal level to. We were really trying to create a renaissance in our food culture which we have played a small part in, but so have the many celebrity chefs, television programmes, journalists who write superb, you know, recipe features and things like that. I mean we're in a totally different place from where we were 20 years ago but we still face enormous challenges.

Derek Wright 5:28

I think during the time that I've known your legs here, I've seen obviously the focus of love British food is a food but it, it's amazing how Love British Food in its own right brings people together from farm to fork right the way through and often involves a lot of families, whether that's at um the farm side or the catering side or people, as you say, just buying domestically. Who would you say some of your love British food heroes were? I believe HRH the Queen has been part of Love British food for a long time.

Alexia Robinson: 06:05

well I, yeah, our, current queen is she's been a fairy godmother to me and to love British food. And you're absolutely right, I would not have been able to develop what really has been a cottage industry, type organisation, to the level that it's operated, if I didn't have a fairy godmother, and she has been that. And, to a certain extent, that's one of the many reasons why I've decided to turn it into a social enterprise, to ensure that all of that passion, hard work and support is rewarded, with a legacy, and that the work we do, has a lasting future, but in terms of the heroes, I mean, she was my, and still is a sort of fairy godmother, but in terms of heroes, I think you also used a really important word there, Derek, which is family. And I think love British food is a family and it's a family that brings together people across the retail, catering and farming sectors. And I mentioned celebrity chefs earlier, but actually I think the real celebrities are, the people out there in communities, school chefs, for example, leaders in a NHS catering team who go that extra mile to, develop close relationships with their suppliers, the many volunteer organisations that exist to make food available to people in their communities where it quite simply wouldn't by the traditional supply chains. And I think those are, they're the hidden celebrities and they're my heroes and there are thousands of them. And I see love British food's job as, I mean to use the fairy godmother analogy a bit further, waving a magic wand, really, to, shine a light on all they do, and as I've said before, give them a broad tent under which they can all operate together, so they feel like a big family. And I know these all sound soft words, but I think this is where love British food has always been slightly different from other campaigning groups where we are truly grassroots as much as we are, high profile, if that makes sense. We have a strong social media presence. I think we now have, the strongest, account on Facebook promoting British food, for example. we talk to, MP’s, and people in position of power. But we are not primarily a political lobbying group. We are not a campaign that rests on the success of a particular tweet. We are about achieving things on the ground. And I, think we are a roll your sleeves up, very practical campaign. and the reason for that is because of the people who come under our broad umbrella and deliver real change in the communities that they live in, and it's trying to give those people a platform where they can inspire and enable others. I, think, is the magic that, we try to create.

Derek Wright: 09:09

And we also talk about m. We speak a lot, don't we, about the wholesalers as suppliers of farmers. But we also talk about uh, that it's so important to educate the next generation. Obviously I'm from the school meals world and there's sometimes a disconnect where the food has actually come from. So tell us a little bit about the food fortnight and how that engages young people to think about where the food that they're eating, where that has come from.

Alexia Robinson: 09:40

Well, British food fortnight has been, an established date on the school calendar now for a couple of decades, both in the school kitchen but also in the classroom. I mean, it's worth remembering that, quite some years ago when everyone was having the endless debate about how we can get food and cooking back onto the national curriculum, we actually just got on, at love British food and produced what was then the first guide to teaching food and cookery within the national curriculum with the support of the Department of Education and the Department of Health and with a forward from our now queen and distributed it to 35,000 schools around the country, receiving accolades from the Times Educational supplement and many others. I mean that was back in the days where literally you produced, you know, a sort of a beautiful curriculum guide and you put it in envelopes and you literally sent it to named teachers. I mean things have moved on so much now, from that, but I use that as an example to say that, our schoolwork has always really been, at the heart of everything we do. I've always said if we don't educate the next generation about how to cook fresh meat, fresh vegetables, there quite certainly won't even be a market for those in the future and we'll have handed the health of the nation entirely to the food processors. we all know it's really important. We are but one of hundreds of organisations out there that care passionately about this and are doing great things to achieve it. British food fortnight sits extremely well within the school calendar, in the autumn term, just before half term, and at a time when actually many schools used to try and incorporate, activities around the harvest, some years ago. I know that doesn't happen always in all schools now, but, whether it's working with school chefs to encourage them to highlight particular seasonal British products on their menu, which is something that's been proven to increase take up of school meals during the fortnight, or whether it's working with head teachers and staff to encourage them to run, fun, engaging, food related topics within their curriculum teaching it seems to be an event that has really inspired them. And if you go onto our website, there are examples of literally thousands of schools that have taken part in imaginative ways over the years.

Derek Wright: 12:11

And before we wrap up, Alexia, there's so much great work going on. But what would the two key points be? If listeners on the podcast want to get involved with love British food, what would you say the two things that, they should do?

Alexia Robinson: 12:26

Join the debate. Follow us on social media. I know it's not just about social media, but our communications are strong and I'd like everyone to feel that they're part of that and take part in this year's British food fortnight. It's the last week of September, the first week of October. Wherever you are in the country, in your community that you live in, either think about organising something or literally just use that calendar date to make a particularly conscious effort to buy British when you're eating out and when you're shopping, I think those are the two things that I hope every single listener can do. but going forward, I know in this series of podcasts we have many, many more ambitious things that we're going to be asking our listeners to do, going forward in terms of debates about how we can get more British food on hospital menus, how we can highlight, its presence more in the retail sector. I know there's been a great start with supermarkets, volunteering a buy British button, but how we can capitalise on that, how we can get more community activity around the country, and I look forward very much, Derek, to listening to the podcast going forward and seeing how we can, use this platform to help achieve those things.

Derek Wright: 13:44

Thank you so much, Alexia, for joining us today and for all the incredible work you do to promote British food. As always, it's been a pleasure chatting.

Alexia Robinson: 13:52

Thank you, Derek. Much enjoyed.

Derek Wright:: 13:54

Alexia and her story is so inspiring to me. I met Alexia a few years ago and she's since inspired me to think differently about the role the public sector plays and how we can close the gap between British farming and the plates we serve.

Next, we have an NHS legend, Tim Radcliffe. Tim has left the forefront of, uh, the NHS catering and now looks after sustainability, but has been involved in NHS catering for many years. Tim, tell us a little bit about how you got involved. at love British food.

Tim Radcliffe: 14:29

I think it started really, uh, going back four or five years ago now. And, I was aware of the education, working group and I realised there wasn't something similar for the NHS. So I reached out to Alexia and suggested that we. We begin something which can bring the NHS caterers into the forefront of what we were doing. I think this is really on the back, also on the back of the NHS chef of the year competition, which allowed us to. To really bring the focus of food back within the NHS. So that's. That's initially how I got involved and, sent some blogs to Alexia of some of the work that we'd been doing at East Lancashire hospitals.

Derek Wright: 15:18

And the hospital working group is obviously doing some great work and it's great to see a load of chefs in wellies down on the farm understanding what's going on on one end of the supply chain before it gets to them. The hospitals and hospital food is obviously changing. Tell me a little bit more about how you actually engage, frontline staff and what impact is that having within hospitals.

Tim Radcliffe: 15:41

So I think the end result is the farm visits, as well as that, we also have meetings, which are done online so that we can engage and understand what people's problems are and challenges that they have to understand how, firstly, the NHS supply chain works, because that can be quite a daunting thing to navigate. So we start with that and bringing anybody, anybody who wants to get involved. So it's not a closed shop in any shape or form. So we include. In the hospital working group, we include managers, we include chefs, we include supply chain experts. We also have dietitians and some industry greats like Nick Vardis are also involved within that as well. So that's the starting point is to have those conversations so that we know where everybody wants to go and we all agree on the direction of travel. Then the bit is getting those people together and not just virtually, but ensuring that the chefs are able to come out and understand that. That link between what they're putting on a plate for a patient and where it's coming from, how we engage with the farmers. So it's understanding that provenance of what the food is and then putting that onto a plate. And the best people to do that are chefs. It's all well and good having the managers understanding what it does, but nothing's more inspirational for a chef than actually seeing real produce and understanding the love and care that has been done and put into that by our British farmers. So that's, that's. Then the end bit is getting them there into it and allowing them to understand that they have a really important role in what they do. So there's, there's two faceted on that. And then the third bit is. Comes where we have our procurement specialists, is getting them involved so that we've got the direction what we want. We've got that integration now between the chefs and the hospital caterers in with the farmers. We now got to get the procurement specialists involved so that we can then buy this wonderful produce. So it then ends up at a final story when that food is on a plate. And we've had some good success around that.

Derek Wright: 17:56

Just what's the standout? One of the successes that from, say, the last six months, m around that.

Tim Radcliffe: 18:04

The farm visits have been standout, and the most recent one was exceptional prior to that. We had one at the end of last year. But to me it's that end result which is not just about the talking, it is about the doing. And we had some great success with, uh, a trust in Somerset, uh, where they were able to change their procurement process and change how their tender went, so that it enabled a small and medium enterprise farm, a local farm, to the trust, enabled them to bid for a tender and successfully win that. So getting organic milk within 20 miles of a hospital trust onto a hospital procurement and allow patients and staff and visitors to access that. And that's more of what we want to be doing. everybody is waiting for the government bystanders and to understand how that will impact and what we do, but we can actually do it ourselves. We don't need to be led by government in the way that we need to go. We are able to make these choices and our farmers produce some incredible produce. And we should not let any red tape stand in the way of what we want to and can do.

Derek Wright: 19:20

And certainly in our world, obviously, I'm from school meals and you're from the hospital catering side, that nutrition plays a vital role. Do you think there's a difference between some of the produce that we see compared to local produce?

Tim Radcliffe: 19:37

The ability to have that, uh, provenance and also the shortened supply chain is really important, as well as nutrition. And nutrition is incredibly important in hospitals, particularly, protein, to ensure that our patients get better quicker. But it's also about that social value and engaging the local community as local as possible to your hospital or wherever your public sector offering is, is so important because you are the heartbeat of that community. And by seeing that produce on a menu, being able to go out and understand exactly what is being picked, it allows you to have that confidence, particularly around a product, but also around the sustainability and understanding, you know, all about soil health and how that impacts on the produce that is being done, the nutrients that that can give you, rather than thinking that it's coming halfway around the world and we have no. Whilst the food mile part of it may not be much of an issue, however, we don't. We can't get out there to see exactly what's happening on that, on that farm or where it's been bred, how it's been produced and we really ought to be part of that. We want to be one with nature and understand exactly how our produce is being grown and then being able to put that on a plate for our patients and children.

Derek Wright: 20:56

Definitely. I think we talk a lot about community. We love British food and lots of different communities, whether that's the farmers, uh, who are producing that. We talk about the people who producing meals within the public sector. So it's a vast range. We spoke about food fortnight and how that engages with school pupils. One of the key events that stand out for myself was last month we were down on the farm, wasn't we, Tim? with the first public sector love British food influencer eventually. Tell me a little bit about that event and what was your sort of key messages that you took away from that.

Tim Radcliffe: 21:37

It was an exceptional day, and you know, some of these events that you go to, everyone is uh, agreeing and it's all nodding and it's handshakes. What was exceptional about that day was that it wasn't all nodding handshakes. There was proper open and honest debate and challenges made from farmers to the public sector caterers of the barriers they feel that is preventing them from doing what we would want to do, have more engagement. So that in itself allowed a real ability for us to chat and discuss and debate so that itself getting people together was such an exceptional thing. I think one of the things I really took away from it is that the producers and the growers, they want to get involved. They believe so passionately about their produce. We believe passionately about public sector food and understanding that relationship between the public sector, the NHS, our educational boards, the people who really do, really, really do cradle to grave, we believe passionately what we do and finding and speaking to growers and producers who also have that same passion. It really was an inspiring day to understand that together we will be able to achieve. I think it's important that we all agreed on that day. These are small steps and it isn't going to happen overnight. We have to take this slowly. But we also need to have ambitious targets on there. And we should be setting ourselves targets for how much British food we can get into our public sector and getting that community spirit around what we're doing. You know, a community school, an NHS site, they really are the hub of that community. We all hold events that, everybody will be involved in and coming to. So having, you know, why can't we have a farmers market on a Sunday afternoon at an NHS site. when we hold the school fete? Why can't we have farmers markets being on there on the same day and showing the produce and showing where the food has come from and understanding what connection again?

Derek Wright: 23:50

Oh, definitely. I think there's a. We're going to have a lot to talk about over these, podcasts, aren't we, Tim? And I think that hopefully will give uh, our listeners a snippet into the great work that's going on across the British food and across the industries. Because as you rightly say, that there's producers, there's farmers that are already wanting to get their produce into the public sector, into local shops, and there's people out there equally wanting to buy it. And hopefully this podcast can be a way of engaging that to take place more things. Sometimes there's a disconnect. We sometimes look for the cheapest food and sometimes it's not necessarily always the best. And having that story behind the food and it being local is so important.

Tim Radcliffe: 24:39

Yea, It's only today that I read an article in, in one of the magazines talking around how the reason there's so much food waste is because children prefer, prefer ultra processed food. Well, that's if you're serving ultra processed food, they're going to eat ill processed food. We have to get away from doing that. You know, it's. We can debate all day long about chicken and egg and what comes first. What will come first is education, and that's where it comes and education starts. You know, we are we should be a health promoting health service and not a health curing health service. We should be looking at promoting. We don't serve cigarettes and alcohol in hospitals, so we should be promoting health. And the same goes with the education sector is that we should be looking at what we can do, how we can do that reconnection between the children and the food. And I'm aware of a project I think it's in Hackney where they're doing all kinds of different meats and venison and cooking different venison, different dishes with venison for their children in the school. And if an inner city project and school in Hackney can do it, pretty certain you can do it anywhere else in the country.

Derek Wright: 25:49

I totally agree, Tim. It's been fabulous catching up and talking to you and I think that these chats, there's going to be many more to come. So thank you, Tim.

Tim Radcliffe: 26:00

Thank you very much

Derek Wright: 26:02

Tim and I are passionate about ensuring British produce finds its way under the plates of those we support and serve. I'm in awe of his work and can't wait to see what he does next. As we move away from these darker months and spring starts, the farming world springs into action with the arrivals of new lambs and the preparation of fields with the planting of new crops. This year has been extremely difficult as the ground is so wet. Next we're going to head over to our resident chef, Ben Bartlett and see what he's got in store where he'll update us on what's seasonal and his recipe of the month.

Ben Bartlett: 26:42

Hello, it's Ben Bartlett director for love British Food and here is a list of seasonal produce for asparagus. Uh, only a short season lasting about a month and best steamed, grilled or in a nutritious soup. Jersey Royal New potatoes these small, waxy, nutty potatoes are ideal for boiling or oven, roasting lettuce and salad leaves. Fresh greens like lettuce, spinach and rocket are, uh, everywhere and make healthy, tasty salads. Purple sprouting broccoli this vibrantly coloured vegetable is great steamed, roasted or sauteed radishes. These firm, crunchy, peppery root vegetables will add a spring to salads and sandwiches. Spring onions sometimes called scallions, they have a mild taste and can be eaten raw or cooked to provide a fresh, crisp flavour. And finally, watercress. With its impressive health benefits and peppery taste, watercress is ideal for salads, sandwiches or as a garnish. My recipe of the month is a delicious British lamb grill for two.

Derek Wright: 27:56

We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode and our farm to fork stories and the inspirational people behind them. If you are, don't forget to subscribe and share. And for more information on love British food and our recipes, head over to our website a www.lovebritishfood.co.uk and of course follow us on social media. @Lovebritishfood on Facebook, Instagram, X formally Twitter. thank you for joining us.