UK has not done enough to prepare for shocks to food supplies, says watchdog

The climate crisis, disease and cyber-attacks pose growing risks to the UK’s food supplies and the government needs to act to make the system more resilient, according to the public spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) is urging the Department for Food, the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) to work more closely with households, communities and businesses to ensure the flow of crucial food into the country can withstand supply shocks that are becoming increasingly common and severe.

Its latest report found Defra – the department responsible for security of food supply – had taken some steps to better prepare for future shocks, but said it had not done enough in recent years to get citizens and industry to plan for possible emergencies.

Britain relies on overseas imports for more than a third of its food, most of it entering through four ports – Dover, Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway – making supplies particularly vulnerable to potential disruption.

The NAO’s report comes after months of warnings about the resilience of the UK’s food supply chain from experts who have told households to build up a stockpile of long-life items they could rely on in an emergency. Britons are less prepared for potential future catastrophic events than citizens of several other European countries, according to government research.

The supply chain has already come under pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, although businesses including the nation’s largest supermarkets managed to keep goods flowing, in most cases without the need for significant government assistance.

However, Defra is less confident about the private sector’s ability to withstand future shocks, such as extreme weather events, without greater government intervention.

Food industry businesses praised Defra’s engagement with them during the pandemic, but told the NAO it had communicated with them less frequently since. The report said the companies had limited input into the government’s plans for reacting to supply disruption, which could mean officials created proposals that would not work in practice.

Gareth Davies, the NAO’s head, said: “Recent disruptions have shown the resilience of the UK’s food supply chain, but risks are increasing in likelihood and severity.

“Defra should learn from approaches taken in other countries, and strengthen preparedness for emergencies by testing plans with local government and industry.”

The government has designated food as one of 13 critical national infrastructure sectors it considers essential for the proper functioning of the country.

However, food industry representatives have said that does not go far enough and have called on ministers to add the UK’s cold stores and food transport hubs to the critical list, which would ensure their power supplies would be maintained in the event of widespread outages.

The NAO report comes just a few months after the trade body for cold storage and logistics, the Cold Chain Federation, accused the government of “complacency” over national food storage and urged ministers to make potential disruption to the UK’s food system an “immediate national priority”.

The last national exercise testing Defra’s preparedness for catastrophic events that would severely disrupt the availability of food took place in 2023, but did not include most supply chain businesses, the NAO found.

In addition, local resilience forums indicated they lacked clarity from Defra on what would be expected from them in the event of disruption.