Food industry should rethink ‘cheap food’ urges Tory MP

Speaking at a round table on food security at the Commons, Sandys, MP for South Thanet, will claim the food sector needs to rethink the “stack ‘em high cheap food business model”​, which she says has grown up in the UK.

Ingredient costs​

With food costs set to rise in the future as rising global demand pushes up ingredients costs, the food sector needed to be re-engineered to become more consumer focused, said Sandys in advance of today’s (April 25) round table.

She accused the food industry of operating a system that “implicitly promotes”​ waste.

“It is time we accepted that prices are only going in one direction – up – and that the best solution is to help build a resilient consumer,”​ she said in a statement.

Shop price food inflation in March increased to 5.4% from 4.2% in February, according to data from the British Retail Consortium and Nielsen. That was mainly due to rising energy costs.

“We must start to re-engineer our food sector around consumers’ ability to feed their families for less, despite unit price rises,”​ she said.

Supermarket discounting​

Sandys called on the food industry to do more to help consumers reduce waste in the home. That involved more innovative packaging, better portion size control and reviewing the use of supermarket discounting, such as ‘buy one, get one free’, which encourages waste, she said.

Other speakers at the round table included minister for agriculture and food Jim Paice, former Brake Brothers ceo Stefan Barden and Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University.