Phase 2 - Defra, UKrandd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=FO0414(… · Web viewThe sample for the study ... 62% of respondents mentioned reductions in clothes ... Hundreds of

Defra Project FO0414Part 1

Consumer insight into food prices and food security

Full report

Defra final report - FO0414 (Annex 1) Page 1 of 71

BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT

Defra’s definition of food security is for all consumers to have access at all times to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life at affordable prices; to enable this, food supply must be reliable and resilient to shocks and crises, and food has to be produced in sustainable ways. The current concerns about UK and international food security stem from security of key inputs such as energy and water, potential impact of global climate change and the recent economic crisis and current recession. One key mechanism by which potential insecurity is indicated is through price: UK food price inflation peaked at 14.5% in August 2008 (DFID/Defra 2010), with variation for specific commodities, despite efforts by the retail sector to absorb increases in inputs and other costs. In the UK this followed several decades of falling food costs, generally rising incomes and thus a decreasing proportion of income spent on food even by the lowest income quintile. Such increases in food prices, coinciding with increases in oil and transport costs, financial and job insecurities, are likely to have differential effects on households in different circumstances. In addition, there is some evidence of consumer concern over the reliability of the food system because of environmental threats and emergent instabilities. The research was therefore timely, and focused on the consumer level in terms of perceptions and behaviours in relation to key components of food security at household level: access (where and how people obtain food), affordability (experience of, and practices in relation to, changes in food prices) and availability (what is bought), as well consumers’ sense of food security (confidence in the food system; intended and actual changes in practice in the relatively short term.) The overall aim of the project was to assess consumer understanding of, and reactions to, changing food prices and food security, and expectations of Government, and to examine the feasibility of dev-eloping potential indicators of consumer confidence in the food system. The aim of this first part of a two-part project was to assess consumer understanding of, and reactions to, changing food prices and food security, and their expectations of Government. Statistical analysis of the Defra Family Food Surveys was undertaken in Part 2 of the project (to be published) to assess the cost of a healthy diet and dietary patterns.

OBJECTIVES

The project objectives covered in this report are as follows:

1) Examine consumer understandings of the concept of ‘food security’. 2) Explore the extent to which the component elements of ‘food security’ influence household

food purchasing and consumption decisions. 3) Gain insights into consumer experiences of food price changes and impacts of the economic

downturn over the past two years. 4) Based on outcomes from the above research, examine the feasibility of developing one or

more potential indicators of consumer confidence in food security and in the wider food system.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF METHODOLOGY

The research was carried out between July 2009 and July 2010:

A preliminary literature trawl was used to inform the design and subsequent interpretation of the consumer survey and workshops.

This was followed by a rapid, quantitative survey which was administered online to identify trends in consumer behaviour in relation to the research questions, and investigate any variations.

Drawing on the findings from the on-line survey, a series of deliberative workshops were undertaken to enable more detailed and in-depth understanding of consumer perceptions and behaviours, in relation to socio-economic group, location, and life stage.


QUANTITATIVE ON-LINE SURVEY

Methods

To establish national baseline data on which to build subsequent qualitative inquiry, an initial large scale quantitative survey was undertaken during November-December 2009 to provide robust data on overarching consumer attitudes and behaviours. Whilst a face-to-face survey might arguably be the preferred method for consumer research of this type, the costs of such an exercise (bearing in mind the requirement for a large sample size of >1000 respondents) were beyond the budget and time allocated for the research. Given sharply declining response rates and correspondingly high levels of bias associated with telephone surveys (A. Inman, personal communication), a telephone methodology was not considered an optimal approach. As a consequence, in terms of data collection, an on-line methodology was selected as the most appropriate option available. Previous research has shown that web panels ‘can be a viable alternative to telephone surveys that allows researchers to conduct high-quality research’ (Braunsberger et al., 2007).

The sample for the survey was drawn from the NOP-GFK Consumer Panel which comprises 230,000 UK adults (aged 18 and over) who are randomly recruited on an on-going basis by NOP-GFK to take part in consumer research. The panel includes individuals from all key socio-economic cohorts including low income groups, with 8% of the panel earning <£7,000 pa and 13% between £7,000-£14,000 pa.

All respondents selected for interview from the NOP-GFK panel were primary food purchasers within their respective households. The sample for the study was proportionally stratified (using quotas) to be representative of the 18+ primary food purchaser population across several socio-demographic variables considered pertinent to the research objectives; specifically gender, age, household income, car ownership, household size and geographical location. The profile of the 18+ primary food shopper population was derived from NOP-GFKs FRS Omnibus survey which is a regular large scale random omnibus survey of the UK adult population employing rigorous sampling procedures to ensure data reliability.

The proportional stratification ensured data emanating from the study were representative of the primary food shopper population as a whole and were not skewed by any particular grouping. In total 1014 respondents were interviewed, the resulting sample profile is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Sample profile breakdown18+

primary purchaser population

Achieved sample profile

18+ primary

purchaser population

Achieved sample profile

Gender H/H Car Ownership

Female 66% 64% Yes 72% 80%Male 34% 36% No 28% 20%Age Number of

People in H/H18-24 9% 9% 1 26% 27%25-34 16% 16% 2 33% 34%35-44 20% 21% 3 18% 18%45-54 17% 18% 4 15% 15%55-64 16% 16% 5+ 8%65+ 22% 20%H/H Income RegionUp to £14,000 33% 30% England 83% 83%£14,001 - £28,000 23% 25% Scotland 9% 9%£28,001 - £48,000 29% 30% Wales 5% 5%£48,001+ 15% 15% N. Ireland 3% 3%


In addition, the sampling design provided a sufficient number of interviews within each of the strata outlined in Table 1 to allow any differences in responses between these strata to be analysed. This was considered an important consideration by the research team, given that the research objectives placed significant importance on assessing the views of low income shoppers compared to more affluent groups.

Data Collection

The questionnaire used for the study was administered to respondents on-line via a secure website and was designed to take approximately 25 minutes to complete. All data collection and analysis was conducted in full accordance with the Data Protection Act and the Market Research Society’s Code of Conduct to guarantee respondent confidentiality. Prior to going live, the questionnaire received approval both from Defra’s Survey Control Unit and the University of Warwick Ethical Committee.

Questionnaire Design

A structured questionnaire was developed in close consultation with Defra’s project team consisting of 41 questions, sequenced to address the research objectives. In addition to closed ‘yes/no’, ‘agree/disagree’ and rating scale questions, a small number of open-ended questions were included to explore issues not easily addressed through closed questioning. In order to explore the relative importance of specific factors to project participants when making food purchases, the research team elected to use Choice-Based Conjoint analysis (Discrete Choice Modelling). This multi-variate technique involved presenting respondents with multiple variations of two food product items, specifically an 800g bread loaf and a 2kg chicken; each variation containing different categories of the following attributes: price, health characteristics, appearance, environmental impact and product origin. Bread and chicken were chosen as they tend to be purchased by a wide range of consumers. For illustrative purposes, a summary of the different attribute levels presented to respondents for the chicken item are outlined in Table 2.

Table 2 – Conjoint Characteristics and Levels for Chicken ItemPrice £4 Environmental Impact (1) 3kg CO2 emissions

£6 6kg CO2 emissions£8 9kg CO2 emissions

£10Fat content 150g Production location Local

300g Elsewhere in the UK450g Abroad

Appearance Wrapped in plasticUnwrapped

(1) Refers to CO2 emissions produced during production

Project participant preferences were captured by asking respondents to choose which item they would buy from a set of product items1, thereby simulating a natural activity which food purchasers perform on a regular basis i.e choosing one product from a selection of products in a shop or market stall. In effect, preferences were derived through a process of respondents trading-off product attributes (price, healthiness etc) against each other which, in turn, reveals the relative importance of each of these attributes within the purchase decision.

For each of the conjoint designs (bread and chicken), respondents were exposed to 7 sets of items, each set containing 3 items from which respondents were asked to select their most preferred item. If respondents did not like any of the items presented within a particular set, they could chose a ‘none of these’ option. 10 versions of the 7 sets were created and respondents were randomly allocated one

1 Each respondent was presented with either Chicken or Bread item sets but not both to avoid respondent fatigue during the completion of the questionnaire


of the versions. An example of one of the sets (containing 3 items) used in the survey is provided in the screenshot below.

Data Analysis

Data from open-ended questions were classified using code-frames to rationalise responses into response categories. All data from both the open and closed questions within the questionnaire were then compiled into frequency counts prior to the creation of cross tabulations using SPSSv14. Data from the conjoint exercise were modelled using Sawtooth analytical software to produce utilities for each level of each attribute. Utilities are a measure of the value or attractiveness of each attribute level to respondents and were used to derive a measure of relative importance for each attribute. Relative importance measures demonstrate how important a given attribute (e.g price, environmental performance, production location etc) is to the purchase decision and are expressed as a fraction of 100%. These measures are ratio-scaled, but they are also relative which means an attributes importance score is always relative to other attributes being measured. For example if price has a relative importance score of 60% and production location a score of 30%, this means price is twice as important as production location in the purchase decision.

Data Confidence Limits

In most cases, questions were answered by the total base of 1014 respondents which means confidence limits (95% interval) for the results are mainly between +/- 2% to 3%. In a small number of cases, some questions were answered by a sub-sample of respondents in which case confidence limits (95% interval) increase to approximately +/- 5%.

Where differences in responses between different socio-economic groups (e.g income groups) have been reported, care has been taken to ensure a statistically significant relationship exists between the variables in question (P=<0.05).


On a number of occasions within the questionnaire, 5 point ‘agree-disagree’ rating scales were used to assess respondent attitudes across a host of different issues where 5 indicates ‘complete agreement’ and 1 ‘complete disagreement’. Scales allow a more subtle exploration of attitudinal variability compared to simple dichotomous ‘yes/no’ questions. For reporting purposes, codes 5 and 4 have been interpreted as ‘agreement’ and codes 1 and 2 as ‘disagreement’. Where respondents ticked code 3, this has been interpreted as a neutral or undecided position.

RESULTS

Awareness of price rises, perceived causes and impacts

To provide an overview of project participant attitudes towards food price rises and related impacts on household purchasing behaviours, respondents were asked to reflect on their perceptions of food price trends over the previous 2 years, whether they had noticed any differentials in price rises across different product categories and whether price rises had stimulated specific food purchasing strategies in addition to modifications in spending patterns on other household items or activities.

As can be seen in Figure 1, 87% respondents had noticed an increase in food prices over the previous 2 years, 47% believing prices had ‘increased a lot’ and 40% believing they had ‘increased a little’. The data demonstrate no significant differences between income groups; with similarly high levels of awareness recorded across all income bands.

Survey respondents stating that food prices had ‘increased a lot’ over the last 2 years were asked whether they had noticed particularly sharp price increases for specific food items. As shown in Figure 2, the highest numbers of responses were recorded for bread, meat, and dairy products. Fruit, vegetables and salads received fewer mentions.


The food price rises during 2007 had attracted considerable attention within the media, including analysis of the underlying causes for food price inflation. However, results from the survey highlighted generally low levels of project participant understanding regarding why their food bills had been rising. When respondents believing food prices had increased ‘a lot’ were asked how aware they were of the reasons behind the rises, approximately half considered themselves to be aware (45%) but only 13% classified themselves as ‘extremely aware’ (see Figure 3).


When asked to articulate their understanding of price rises within an open-ended response, respondents mainly focused on increased oil/fuel prices and related transportation costs; with issues relating to the ‘global economic recession’ also receiving a relatively high number of responses. Agronomic factors, for example reductions in food production due to climate change and drought, received very few responses from survey respondents. This mirrors other research which demonstrates most consumers do not readily understand the interdependency between primary food production systems and climatic conditions. A subsequent question prompting respondents with a pre-defined list of potential reasons for food price inflation provided the response profile outlined in Figure 3.

It is interesting to note that older participants regarded themselves as better informed than younger participants, which reflects other research indicating an age dynamic regarding food system knowledge and appreciation.

In order to explore whether price rises had led project participants to adopt specific food purchasing (or coping) strategies, all respondents who had noticed price rises were asked to respond to a series of attitude statements (see Box 1).

The responses to these attitude statements indicate a range of strategies had been adopted in the face of rising prices; with a full response breakdown provided in Figure 4.


Box 1 – Attitude statements used to understand purchasing strategies

Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = ‘completely disagree’ and 5 = ‘completely agree’

‘I never used to worry about bulk buying food to save money but I do now’

‘Despite higher food prices, I still buy the same amount of food’

‘I never used to spend time looking for food bargains but I do now’

‘I have started to seek out shops that sell cheaper food’

‘Despite higher food prices, I still buy as much high quality food as I used to’

‘I am buying more supermarket own brands rather than more exotic brands’

‘I would say I throw less food away nowadays because it costs more’

‘I grow more food at home nowadays to try to save money’

53%of respondents agreed that they were spending more time bargain hunting with 49% also agreeing that they were seeking out cheaper food outlets. 39% of respondents agreed that they had undertaken bulk buying which is a well documented strategy used by people experiencing food price inflation. A noticeable proportion of respondents (62%) agreed that they had increased their purchasing of supermarket own brands to replace ‘exotic’ (branded) products whilst 33% of respondents agreed they had started to buy poorer quality food products. Reducing food wastage appears to have been a widely adopted strategy, 64% were in agreement that they had begun to throw less food away in response to price increases. 22% agreed they had started to grow more food at home to save money.

A closer analysis of the data outlined in Figure 4 reveals that there is a statistically significant relationship between household income and the uptake of certain purchasing strategies e.g bargain hunting behaviours χ² (12, N=891)=40.5, P=.000, purchasing lower quality food χ² (12, N=891)=46.7, P=.000, purchasing more supermarket own brand food χ² (12, N=891)=25.1, P=.015 and throwing less food away (food wastage) χ² (12, N=891)=25.3, P=.013. Low income groups (household income <£14,000 pa) were noticeably more likely to agree they had adopted these behaviours than the highest income (household income >£41,000) groups.

A consequence of future food price rises is likely to be a reduction in the consumption of other household consumables; particularly for low income groups less able to absorb price increases. Survey results generally support this hypothesis (Figure 5). Overall, of those respondents noticing food price rises in the 2 years preceding the survey, 57% stated it had become necessary for their household to make savings on other items/activities. A significant relationship χ² (2, N=891)=41.99, P=.000 exists between income and the need to make savings with 63% of respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less stating their households had needed to make savings compared with 36% of respondents from households with an income >£41,000. The data show that families have a higher propensity to be impacted than households with no children, 67% of families having made savings compared to 53% of households with no children present χ² (1, N=891)=14.7, P=.000.


Those households making savings had done so in a number of areas: 62% of respondents mentioned reductions in clothes purchases, 74% eating out less and 54% cutting back on holidays. A noticeable proportion (32%) of households making savings had reduced their heating and electricity consumption. There is a statistically significant relationship between income and reductions in heating and electricity consumption χ² (2, N=505) =8.3, P=.016 with 40% of lower income households reducing consumption compared with 26% of households with an income >£41,000. This has implications for fuel poverty in an era likely to see increasing food price fluctuations.

Trade-off Analysis

In the interests of public health and the protection of the natural environment, there has been increased policy interest in promoting healthy eating and consumer awareness of ‘environmentally friendly’ food (food which is produced using low input agricultural systems and is sold to the consumer with minimal packaging). There has also been a significant upsurge in interest amongst policy makers, the agricultural sector and environmental groups in the promotion of ‘local food’ (food that is grown by local/regional producers) to strengthen the link between local producers and local consumers, thereby supporting the resilience of local economies.

A key policy question with relevance to the food security debate is how important each of these factors – health, environmental performance, origin of production – are to consumers when purchasing food and how will consumers be likely to trade these factors off against rising food prices in the future? In particular, will rising food prices result in poorer consumers trading-off health and environmental attributes against price quicker than more affluent consumers?

In order to explore this issue within the research, a conjoint analysis (choice modelling experiment) was undertaken. This involved developing an understanding of the ‘utility’ (or desirability) consumers place on price, healthiness, environmental performance, appearance (whether food is wrapped or not) and production location attributes when buying food. For the purposes of this project, respondents were asked to assess these attributes in relation to the purchasing of chicken and bread; for no other reason than these are ubiquitous food items that feature in many consumers’ shopping baskets. From these derived utilities, it was possible to calculate the relative importance of each attribute to the project participant purchase decision. For a full description of the approach used, please refer to the methodology section in the introduction.


Utility scores and relative importance scores relating to the purchase of chicken are presented in Figures 6a to 6d2 and Figure 7 below. Given results were very similar for both chicken and bread, only the data relating to the choice experiment for chicken have been analysed and reported on. Readers should pay attention to the description of utilities and relative importance scores in Box 2 before attempting to interpret the graphics presented below.

As can be seen in Figure 6a, the utility increases dramatically as price decreases, with an almost linear relationship between price and utility. Large increases in utility are registered for each price point considered by respondents.

2 A line Figure is not provided for the Appearance attribute as only two levels for this attribute were included in the experiment. Utilities for these levels were 15.1 for ‘Wrapped in plastic’ and -15.1 for ‘Unwrapped’


Box 2 – How to interpret utilities and relative importanceUtilities are a measure of relative desirability or worth. Every attribute level in a conjoint project is assigned a utility. The higher the utility, the more desirable the attribute level. They are scaled to an arbitrary additive constant within each attribute and are based on interval data. It is not correct to compare a single value from one attribute with a single value from another. Instead, one must compare differences in values e.g. compare the differences in utility between two price points (X) with the difference in utility between two levels of another attribute (Y)

Relative importance is a measure of each attribute’s contribution to total utility and is derived by calculating the range in the attribute’s utility values. Percentages can be calculated from relative ranges, obtaining a set of attribute importance values that add to 100 percent. Importance measures are ratio-scaled, but they are also relative, study-specific measures which means – for example - an attribute with an importance of 60% is three times as important as an attribute with an importance of 20%.

Utility increases as fat content decreases (Figure 6b), again demonstrating a linear relationship. However the line is not as steep as for price and the utility increments between attribute levels are not as pronounced.

Figure 6c demonstrates that utility values increase very little as environmental performance (CO2 emissions during production) improves. There also appears to be a decline in utility increments as environmental performance improves illustrated by the flattening out of the curve.


The values demonstrated in Figure 6d show significant increases in utility between home grown and imported food. Local food receives the highest utility although only marginally higher than UK grown food. The key differentiator is whether the food is imported or not.

As summarised in Figure 7, price is by far the most important issue respondents (all income groups) take into account when buying chicken; twice as important as the next most important issues, locality of production and healthy eating (fat content). By far the lowest importance is placed on environmental considerations. In relative terms, older shoppers are less price sensitive than their younger counterparts, they place a greater emphasis on healthy eating and are more concerned with the locality of food production systems (buying locally). They are not, however, motivated by environmental considerations. Again in relative terms, price is less of an issue for higher income


participants who also display a higher propensity to buy lower fat products. Purchasers from higher income and lower income households do not differ regarding the importance levels they place on environmental impact and locality of food production. The conjoint findings have important policy implications: as price of food increases, shoppers are likely to increasingly sacrifice health and environmental impact considerations when making food purchases. The conjoint analysis suggests older age groups and higher income groups are marginally less likely to trade healthy eating off against price but not to a significant extent. The potential health implications of food price rises, therefore, have broad reach across the socio-demographic spectrum

Consumer understanding of the term ‘food security’

A clear finding from the survey was that the term ‘food security’ has little, if any, resonance with project participants (see Figure 8). This is the case across all demographic cohorts. When asked to comment on what the term ‘food security’ means, two thirds of respondents could not give an answer. Those respondents who did provide a response tended to make associations with food safety, hygiene standards and quality control. Very few explicitly linked the term to security of food supply.

Surprisingly, given that the food security agenda had received considerable media exposure following the food price spikes in 2007, 74% of respondents had no recollection of the food security topic being discussed in the media. Less than 3% demonstrated high levels of recall (Figure 9).


Assessments of household food security

An initial assessment of household food security was undertaken using a framework of affordability, availability and accessibility criteria derived from the literature and Defra’s own food security definition. In order to evaluate respondent households against these criteria, the research team developed a battery of appropriate attitude statements for inclusion within the questionnaire. The statements used are outlined in Box 3 and the results from this exercise presented in Figure 10.


Box 3 – Attitude statements used to explore food securityRespondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = ‘completely disagree’ and 5 = ‘completely agree’

‘It is increasingly difficult for me to find affordable places to buy food that are easy to reach from my home’

‘I am always happy with the quality of the food I am able to afford for my family’

‘The cost of food is becoming a serious source of stress to me and my family’

‘I think the food I am able to buy for my household meets the needs of everyone in my household’

‘It is becoming more difficult for me to afford the variety of food I want to buy’

‘I am regularly faced with a situation where I go without food to ensure my kids get enough’

Survey results imply there were a significant minority of respondents who were experiencing some degree of food insecurity, as defined by the statements specified in Box 3. Furthermore, the data reveals statistically significant relationships between income and experience of food insecurity across the variables investigated: availability of affordable food χ² (12, N=1014)=54.7, P=.000, satisfaction with the quality of food obtained χ² (12, N=1014)=34.4, P=.001, stress associated with food costs χ² (12, N=1014)=71.1, P=.000, ability to obtain the variety of food required χ² (12, N=1014)=74.2, P=.000, meeting household needs χ² (12, N=1014)=45.4, P=.000 and going without food χ² (10, N=266)=47.2, P=.000. As demonstrated in Figure 10, 22% respondents agreed that the availability of affordable food within easy reach of the home was an increasing problem. This figure increased to 31% for respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less. Only 12% of respondents from households with an income >£41,000 recognised this issue to be a problem. Car ownership appeared to improve affordable food availability within easy reach of the home but only marginally. 13% respondents disagreed they were always happy with the quality of food they were able to provide their family units. This increased to 16% for respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less and decreased to 9% for the >£41,000 households. 23% respondents agreed that the cost of food was becoming a serious source of stress for themselves and their families. This increased to 30% of respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less and to 34% of respondents with children in the household. 37% believed it was becoming more difficult for them to afford the variety of food they wanted to buy. This increased to 48% of respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less and reduced to 24% of respondents from households with an income >£41,000. 5% of respondents overall agreed that the food they were able to buy did not meet the needs of their household unit although only 2% of respondents from households with an income of >£41,000 agreed that this situation applied to them.

Perhaps most striking of all when assessing the response breakdown in Figure 10, 19% respondents with children agreed that they regularly go without food to ensure their children receive enough to eat. To supplement the above food security assessment, respondents were asked to consider whether, in the previous 2 years, they had been able to obtain enough ‘affordable, safe and nutritious food’ for their respective households all of the time, most of the time, some of the time or never. The responses outlined in Figure 11 demonstrate that approximately half of respondents (45%) had experienced periods when they perceived their food to be either unaffordable, unsafe, lacking nutrition or a combination of these characteristics. Possibly, not surprisingly, there were statistically significant variations in response across income groups χ² (6, N=1014)=40.8, P=.000 with 47% of respondents from households with an income of £14,000 or less giving an answer of ‘All the time’ compared to 70% of respondents from households with an income >£41,000.


Perceptions of the future

In addition to posing questions about current access to ‘affordable, safe and nutritious food’, the survey also asked respondents to consider the future. Confidence in future food security appears to vary considerably across all sections of the sample base. As shown on Figure 12, whilst approximately half of respondents demonstrated high levels of confidence in future supplies of affordable, safe and nutritious food, the other half had less confidence or felt unable to make a prediction.

Food purchasing strategies are envisaged to change in the future for many shoppers given that 54% respondents believed food would be taking up a significantly greater share of their household expenditure. Noticeably, 29% respondents believed it was likely their households would be eating less variety of foods whilst 48% felt it was likely they would be buying different cuts of meat to save money (Figure 13).


Likely food purchasing patterns in the event of a crisisOne of the objectives of the project as a whole was to examine likely food purchasing behaviours in response to a crisis e.g. a pandemic, fuel embargo etc. If consumers panic-buy, what will they focus on? Whilst this issue was explored in far greater detail within the qualitative phase of research, a small question sequence was included within the quantitative survey to identify the food items focussed on by respondents identified as having undertaken some form of panic buying behaviour in the past.


9% respondents stated they had previously undertaken panic buying in response to a perceived threat of food shortages caused by extreme events; with the incidence of panic buying appearing to be consistent across socio-economic groups. Respondents had purchased a broad profile of foodstuffs (tinned, fresh and frozen) but the most often mentioned items were bread, milk, rice, sugar, pasta, vegetables, beans, coffee and tea. With the noticeable exception of coffee and tea (presumably bought as ‘comfort’ items) the majority of these items can be identified as staples.

The role of government

A big policy question is how far government should, or could, intervene in the food market and how proactive should government be in developing communications and dialogue with the public on the food security issue in general. To better understand consumer expectations of government, respondents were presented with a set of attitude statements designed to elicit their views on appropriate levels of government intervention. The statements used are outlined in Box 4.

Data generated from these statements are presented in Figure 15 below. A high proportion of respondents (77%) believed the government is responsible for ensuring basic food items are


Box 4 – Attitude statements used to explore the role of governmentRespondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = ‘completely disagree’ and 5 = ‘completely agree’

‘It is the responsibility of the government to ensure basic food in the UK is affordable for all UK residents’

‘It is the responsibility of the government to ensure all UK residents have access to a wide choice of affordable nutritious food at all times’

‘It is the responsibility of the government to ensure all UK residents have access to affordable food outlets without the need to use a car or taxi’

‘It is the responsibility of the government to ensure all UK residents have access to affordable food that meets their specific cultural requirements’

affordable for all UK residents. A smaller but still significant proportion (64%) looked to the government to ensure UK residents have access to a wide choice of affordable nutritious food at all times.

Whilst expectations on government were high, there was a perception amongst half of respondents (Figure 16) that government does not have a strong control over food prices.


There also appeared to be uncertainty amongst respondents regarding how much of the UK’s food security depends on home grown v non-domestic production over which the government has little control (Figure 17).

The survey concluded by asking respondents to consider government’s role as an information provider, again through the use of attitude statements (Box 5).

As can be seen in Figure 18, views were extremely varied regarding how proactive the government should be in communicating information about the food security issue to the public and whether such communications would have any benefit.


Box 5 – Attitude statements used to explore the role of government as an information provider

Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = ‘completely disagree’ and 5 = ‘completely agree’

‘I think the media and the scientific community, rather than the government, should be providing the public with information on the food security issue’

‘If there is a food security problem, I don’t think the government telling us there is a problem is going to make the situation any better’


QUALITATIVE PHASE

Aims and Objectives

This part of the research project addressed several objectives: to examine consumer understandings of the concept of ‘food security’; to explore the extent to which the component elements of ‘food security’ influence household food purchasing and consumption decisions; and to gain insights into consumer experiences of food price changes and impacts of the economic downturn over the past two years. It also looked into consumer expectations of government and other actors in the food system with regards to ensuring food security. A series of 15 deliberative workshops was carried out between April and June 2010.

The results of the on-line survey helped to inform the design of workshops. The survey had provided headline indicators about consumer perception and understanding, and the qualitative phase gave a better sense of the narratives and rationale used by consumers to support or explain their opinions and decisions. The workshop format was chosen because it allowed the inclusion of deliberative (decision-making) activities which would encourage participants to think through, discuss and contest different ideas and viewpoints. Workshops were held with primary shoppers or those who had a significant influence on household food purchasing. The workshops involved a number of group activities, as well as facilitated discussions and these were structured around four key themes: food access and availability; food price rises and affordability; consumer understandings of the concept of ‘food security’; and consumer views on who should be responsible for ensuring food security. The participants were recruited by a market research recruitment agency using screening questions to ensure that they matched the selection criteria. Workshops were incentivised, recruitment was undertaken ‘on street’ and workshops were held in a number of local venues including community centres, church halls and a pub.

Sampling Framework and Method

The principles of Defra’s (and others’) definition of ‘food security’ concern access, availability and affordability, and Maxwell (1996) includes ‘the security of knowing such access will be sustained’ (i.e. not living with anxiety about continuity), which is useful for the purpose of this research. Factors most likely to affect perceptions of access and affordability – and possibly availability – are linked to people’s economic circumstances. These might be simply ‘income level’, but might also relate to expectations of employment (level and security), sociological social class/cultural differences and family history/circumstances. The former is likely to be the most immediately important.

The sampling strategy was built around two key concerns: firstly, that the research engaged explicitly with the experiences of low income consumers; and secondly that the work needed to link with other research which uses Defra’s recent system for segmenting populations in terms of views, values and intentions towards environmental problems. On the basis of these requirements, we constructed a sampling frame which prioritized those consumers most likely to have had direct experience of food insecurity (and also most ‘at risk’ if food security is threatened), but also engaged with the broader range of consumers in order to explore in more depth their understandings of ‘food security’, expectations of government and to develop indicators of confidence. Such purposive sampling was necessarily biased.

The sampling strategy was therefore split into two phases (Table 3). The first phase was organized around income, recent experience of income change, existence of dependent children and/or single households, and location. These were all considered to be relevant to experiences of food (in) security, and the preliminary survey results supported this view. It was assumed that such participants are more likely to live in areas of multiple deprivation (for example families experiencing long-term low incomes) or areas suffering effects of current recession (e.g. families experiencing sudden drop in income due to unemployment). As such, our workshops included people who had recently lost their income source through unemployment, and residents of a range of urban and rural places in the West and East Midlands and the South West. Some of these places were characterized by indicators of multiple deprivation, and others recognised as comparatively affluent. It is also likely that single person households may experience food stress since they do not benefit from economies of scale in purchasing, storing, preparing and consuming food, and few recent social policies have targeted


these households (whether young people starting out on careers, or older people, particularly those made redundant in their late 50s), and for this reason single people were recruited to workshops. We also set out to recruit in ways which would capture potential degrees of certainty about employment and differences in family circumstance – particularly lifestage.

In the second phase, participants were recruited using the Defra environmental behaviour segmentation model in order to provide the opportunity to explore the potential differentiation of views and behaviours according to attitudes. This enabled a variety of experiences to be reflected in the resulting data, but there was a strong representation of low income consumers.

Within each of the groups we recruited, diversity was sought in relation to ethnic origin, culture, and gender (i.e. we would seek to avoid women only and men only groups, and where possible, ‘all-white’ groups). Neither aspect was a prime recruitment issue, but it was seen as desirable to capture ethnic/cultural and gendered differences by mixing groups.


Table 3: Sampling Strategy

Phase One: at risk consumers Locations

Long term low income households with dependent children [2 workshops]

The families in these workshops are used to living on low incomes, and have developed strategies for feeding the family.

The rural dimension is added because in case of food shortages caused by failures in distribution systems, rural areas may be more severely affected. However, there may also be opportunities for people to source locally in ways which are distinct from major supermarket sources – this practice might affect perception of food security.

Urban: Coventry. Workshop 2.

Rural: Warwickshire. Workshop 4.

Long term low income single households [2 workshops]

The single people are likely to be young unemployed, or 50+ unemployed.

NB This group included some single parents.


Rural: Winkleigh, Devon. Workshop 5.

Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation [2 workshops]

The people in these workshops have had to adapt rapidly to feeding themselves on a lower income. Whilst their ability to buy food is not necessarily affected by the availability of food, it is affected by affordability because their income has dropped.

The rural dimension is added because in case of food shortages caused by failures in distribution systems, rural areas may be more severely affected. Again, there may, alternatively, be mitigating opportunities to obtain some food items very cheaply from local suppliers, a possibility not open to urban households


Rural: Borrowash, Derbyshire. Workshop 8.

Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation [2 workshops]

People in these workshops have had to adapt rapidly to feeding themselves on a lower income. Whilst their ability to buy food is not necessarily affected by the availability of food, it is affected by affordability because their income has dropped. They will provide insights into how people respond in a crisis.

The rural dimension is added because in case of food shortages caused by failures in distribution systems, rural areas may be more severely affected. Again, there may, alternatively, be mitigating opportunities to obtain some food items very cheaply from local suppliers, a possibility not open to urban households.

Urban: Leamington Spa. Workshop 9.

Rural: Spondon, Derbyshire. Workshop 7.


Phase two: Defra segments

Cautious participants

Environmental worldview is close to the average for the population. Agree that there is pressing crisis, but pessimistic about our ability to tackle climate change. They report barriers to pro-environmental behaviour. Environmental behaviour not a ‘natural fit’ with their identity (e.g. might feel embarrassed).

14% of population; SEG: ‘middling’ – household income similar to population average; Age: younger than average – 25% age 30 and under; Children: with ‘concerned consumers’, most likely to have dependent children.

Leamington Spa.Workshop 10.

Concerned consumers

Broadly pro-environmental but do not believe a crisis is imminent. They rate themselves as environmentally friendly and focus on environmental behaviours in the home.

14% of population; SEG: slight bias to ABC1. Highest level of all groups with income above 60K; Age: 30% are 30-40; Children: most likely to have dependent children (with ‘cautious participants’); Location: as for population average; slightly more likely to live in London / Southwest; Gender: Slightly more female.

Tavistock, Workshop 11.

Positive greens

This group assess themselves as acting in more environmentally friendly ways that any other segment. They hold the most pro-environmental attitudes – they believe we are approaching the planet’s natural limits, that crisis is pressing. They believe humans are largely responsible and people should change their behaviour. They have highest levels of self-reported knowledge about environmental issues.

18% of population; SEG: Most likely to be AB; Age: 41-64 bias; Location: Tend to live in more affluent areas. Over 50% live in top 4 IMD deciles (Index of Multiple Deprivation); Gender: Slightly more female.

Coventry. Workshop 12.

Waste watchers

Doing more than any other, except ‘cautious participants’, to help the environment. Driven by avoiding waste rather than reducing environmental impact. More pro-environmental than average, but also sceptical about scale and urgency of environmental problems. Concerned about changes to UK countryside and loss of biodiversity.

12% of population; SEG: 30% retired; 30% low income; Age: middle age and older bias; Location: Most likely to live in rural and semi-rural areas; Gender: Slightly more male.

Wood End Village, Warwickshire. Workshop 13.

Sideline supporters

Broadly pro-environmental view, but think that humans will find solutions. Attitude-action gap. Are willing to learn and do more, but not proactive. They acknowledge barriers to doing more e.g. lifestyle, habits.

14% of population; SEG: bias to C2DE; Age: Span all ages, but under 30s over-represented; Location: bias to less affluent areas (38% in bottom 3 IMD deciles); less likely to live in South; Gender: Slightly more female.

Coventry. Workshop 14.

Stalled startersConfused environmental views; lowest levels of knowledge about environmental views. The environment has low priority for them personally. They have many serious life priorities to address before they consider the environment e.g. convenience, difficult, cost, embarrassment.

10% of population; SEG: nearly half are DE (Lowest social profile of any group); Age: tend to be younger or older; Location: most likely to live in a big city and most likely to live in London; Ethnicity:

Birmingham. Workshop 15.


More BME than average; Gender: Slight male bias.Honestly disengaged

Lack of interest and concern; sceptical about the nature of the threat. Low levels of environmental activity. Least likely to feel guilty about the environment.

18% of population; SEG: slightly more C12DE; Age: under 30s over-represented; Gender: More likely to be male.

Birmingham. Workshop 16.


Qualitative Sample Achieved

A total of 122 people attended the workshops, an average 8.1 people per workshop, with actual numbers per workshop ranging from 6-10. The overall sample achieved for the workshops had a number of key characteristics. Firstly, 51% of households had children and 44% did not have children3. In relation to the age of participants, whilst ages were mixed, as Table 4 highlights, no participants were under 18 or over 65.

Table 4: Proportion of participants in each age bracket

Age group PercentageUnder 18 0%18-25 8%

26-35 19%

36-45 24%46-55 32%

56-65 13%

Over 65 0%

Missing data 4%

The majority of participants were White British (76%), and the remaining participants included Pakistani (9%), Indian (4%), Black/Caribbean (2%), Dutch (2%), White Irish (1%), Bangladeshi (1%) and White other (1%)4.

Given the emphasis within the sample frame on the experiences of people on low income, the most common household income group was £7,000-£14,000 with 33% of participants belonging to this group (Figure 19). Whilst the sample did include people on higher incomes, as one participant observed in a workshop, this does not necessarily mean individuals have high disposable incomes:

‘Yer, but there is a danger of assuming the people who have a high income is not necessarily highly disposable. You know I work as hard as I work because my personal situation, by personal dynamics require that I do that. We have to earn that much because of the reasons beyond my control. The reason I watch the budget so much is that we have a low disposable income and a high income base.’ (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumer’, Tavistock)

3 Five questionnaires were incomplete and did not indicate whether the households contained children.4 Three questionnaires were incomplete and did not indicate the ethnicity of the participants.


Figure 19: Proportion of respondents in each income bracket

The achieved qualitative sample included a significant proportion of participants whose household income had decreased in the last two years (47%) (Figure 20).

Figure 20: Proportion of respondents whose income decreased, increased and stayed the same over the last two years

In relation to the amount respondents spent on food per month, the majority reported that they spent between £100 and £600 on food (Figure 21). A small proportion (4%) spent less than £100 a month and an even smaller proportion (3%) spent more than £600 per month.

Figure 21: Food spend per month


2. Workshop Results

The results are structured below in relation to the 4 themes addressed in each workshop.

2.1 Food Access and Availability

As an initial activity, participants were asked to indicate where they shopped regularly for food and how they obtained access to their food. Having recorded this information using ‘post it’ notes on two separate activity boards, participants were asked to consider any factors which might restrict the availability of their usual foods, and also anything which might inhibit their ability to gain access to those foods. The boards which were used for these activities are reproduced below.


It is of course difficult to separate out food access from availability, given that if food is unavailable it is also inaccessible. Moreover, availability and accessibility are also inextricably linked with affordability; unaffordable food is essentially unavailable and inaccessible to those who cannot afford it. The inter-relationship between accessibility, availability and affordability was widely recognised by participants. In this section we report on participants’ views on access and availability and opinions on affordability are included in the following section which deals with consumer views on food prices (discussions around availability also recur in the section on food security).

Participants displayed knowledge about the food system, its vulnerabilities and the potential consequences. In conversations around what might affect food availability, they highlighted two broad issues: environmental problems and political, economic and commercial factors. Environmental conditions, especially extreme weather, were the most recently cited factor. The volcanic eruption in Iceland was referred to, and participants talked about how this might prevent food being flown into the country. Similarly, experiences of snow were reflected on by a number of participants (early 2010 saw particularly heavy snow in many parts of the UK), and notably how this impacted on their ability to access shops:

“It’s like when it snows. I used my local supermarket loads when it snowed. I wasn’t driving to the big out-of-town.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starter’, Birmingham)

“I honestly walk round the shops and think there’s no way we’ve got grapes in December in the UK, where did they come from? So you start thinking. How many miles has that travelled and you do think, you’re paying for that at the... at the same time you’re thinking there’s all this thing about carbon footprint, and like you say, the dust cloud and everything. Makes you think, like what if you couldn’t get that food” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starter’, Birmingham).


Inhabitants from villages or rural counties in particular stressed that heavy snow could affect food availability very quickly in more remote areas, and indeed, this had caused at least one Tavistock respondent to consider what would happen if the snow were to last three or four weeks (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock; Workshop 5: ‘Long term low income single households’, Winkleigh). The issue of climate change was raised in relation to food supplies which might be affected if weather ‘suddenly changed drastically’ (Workshop 15: Stalled Starter, Birmingham). It is notable, however, that climate change was only referenced in three out of the fifteen workshops (Workshop 7: ‘Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon; Workshop 8: ‘Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional’, Borrowash; Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham).

Animal disease was also identified by several respondents as an issue affecting the availability of food, for example honey bees dying and outbreaks of food and mouth and ‘bird flu’:

‘Makes you think. They say you don’t catch it [bird flu] off chicken, but you think about it though, don’t you? You think “maybe I’ll steer clear of chicken”. So the food might be there but you might not want to pick it.’ (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Some respondents felt that global population increase would put additional strain on food supplies:

“Further to the global population increase, some of these other countries might need their land to grow food for themselves rather than actually send it over to Western Europe…there would be much more demand for food throughout the world, so we would not be at the top of the pile to get it” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumer’, Tavistock)

A number of political, economic and commercial issues were raised by participants as having the possibility of affecting food availability. Wars were identified in a couple of workshop discussions as having the potential to disrupt food supplies, and global trade. Trading policies more generally were identified as being important factors in food availability, but this view was not very widespread:

‘I’ve seen food here they’re labelled that they come from different countries, so if something goes wrong in the deal or something it won’t be available any more. For example you get used to a certain food which comes from, I don’t know South Africa, and they stop bringing that in, then obviously you’re going to get affected.’ (Group 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

In the majority of workshops, high fuel prices and associated strikes and shortages were highlighted as an important factor in determining food availability. As one respondent put it “our economy is oil based isn’t it? Without oil, we’ve got no economy” (Workshop 3: Long term low income single households, Coventry). The petrol prices were referred to mainly in relation to the increasing cost of food transportation rather than any potential impact on the cost of food production/ processing. One respondent referenced the fuel strikes of 2002, suggesting that “you can quite easily see that it could become an issue in the future” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock).

Overall, the view was that price, rather than overall availability would be affected by shortages of food from different regions of the world; with so many different sources of food, it seemed unlikely to respondents that actual food supply would be restricted. For example:

“To be quite honest with you because of the nature of our y’know, we’re very fortunate in terms of we’ve got very well established retailers and infrastructure, and everything. They just see it as an opportunity. I just think it’s just kind-of media play to get people into a shop. I can’t, I cannot imagine going to a big Asda and not being able to get y’know pretty much a substitute. If I can’t get the first thing I want I can get something pretty similar. If I couldn’t get fresh milk I’d get UHT or I might get condensed milk if I had to put that in my cup of tea instead.... Facilitator: But not no milk at all?


No. I just can’t… maybe I’m being naive I don’t know but…”(Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

I think what Tom said about living in the UK it’s just y’know it’s one of the richest countries. Perhaps if we were living in I don’t know India maybe something like that yeah, you’d be less sure …I think we just know that we’re in a stable country. (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

A few participants mentioned shops selling out of things that were on offer, and not selling products of choice, for example British foods. Some respondents remembered the sugar shortages of 1970s as an example of a commodity being in short supply (e.g. Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry). However, when participants were asked whether they had ever done any ‘panic buying’, it was widely denied and very few could remember instances where they had. A small number of participants reported having ‘stocked up’ with non-perishable foods during the flu pandemic, but since this followed government advice these instances cannot be said to qualify as ‘panic buying’.

In discussions around the accessibility of food, participants tended to refer much more to the household or local level, as opposed to the national or global. Issues such as personal injury, ill-health, problems with personal transport, such as a car breaking down, or snow storms were all highlighted as problems which would affect a household’s ability to access food, particularly in rural areas. As explained by inhabitants of Winkleigh, in Devon, doing a family shop by bus was largely impractical: it would include a 3 hour round trip and any frozen food would be defrosted by the time it arrived home. In the village of Wood End (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End.), a respondent highlighted the importance of petrol, and remarked that “if we couldn’t get petrol we would have to rely on ourselves more”. Interestingly, with a husband who was ex-military, this individual revealed that she kept food rations in stock, and would “never rely on things being 100%”. She felt that “with the state of the world, everything could just stop”, and people would need to know how to grow things. She felt that lots of young people “don’t know how to grow things.”

There is evidence from a number of rural workshops that participants from these areas also felt there was more potential for them to survive in times of crisis than those in urban areas. In Tavistock (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock), an ex-military respondent also described how he would fall back on his army survival skills and, if necessary, hunt livestock on Dartmoor. In all rural workshops, participants discussed the possibility of growing their own food and foraging food from the local environment e.g. “I mean personally I’d go out into the field, get an animal, kill it and have a barbecue” (Workshop 5: ‘Long term, low income single households’ Winkleigh).

In the workshop in the village of Winkleigh in Devon, respondents provided examples of situations when residents had looked after old or sick people and made sure they had enough food. There was a sense that people in rural communities would look after each other, in contrast to the cities:

“Well, certainly round here we may be better off because we live in the countryside and have an understanding of the land, people come together in the countryside but in big cities and towns I dread to think imagine taking away food from several hundred thousand people, they’d eat each other, well the cat and dog first” [Workshop 5: ‘Rural, long-term low income’, Winkleigh]

These comments draw attention to the significance of personal circumstances, life experience and place in shaping peoples’ attitudes towards the broad topic of food security.

Income was recognised as a key determinant of households’ ability to access food in almost all the workshops. Many participants talked about restricted incomes and changes in income and how that would affect food access:5

‘You are very limited actually when you are on jobseekers allowance – the big supermarkets with their own brands. So it boils down to money at the end of the day’

5 NB. This point is discussed in more depth in section 2.3 on Consumer Perceptions of Food Security


(Group 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Coventry)

What becomes clear from these findings is that very few participants envisaged a scenario where food would not be physically available or accessible ‘somehow’, or that any issues would not be merely temporary. Indeed, a common response to the question about whether anything could affect food availability was to joke about Christmas and Bank Holidays! One respondent summed up the general view as follows:

“I think you tend not to worry about availability of food, and I think that we are just so incredibly lucky – that you go to a shop, almost whatever shop it is, whether it’s a garage or a supermarket, and you just don’t even think about whether there is going to be an empty shelf. The shelf is not only fully stacked but it’s stacked pretty neatly as well, so we are just so incredibly lucky in that that respect…other concerns about threats towards availability are just so far off the opposite spectrum that it’s ridiculous” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock).

Even when asked directly about ‘climate change’ or ‘environmental change’ and potential impacts on food production, few respondents seemed concerned about the actual supply of food. For example:

“Something like 40% of our food comes from abroad so I don’t think it [climate change] will have much effect at all…where there are changes, well we’ll say just buy our potatoes from Canada – it will just move things around – I don’t think it will make any difference.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock).

“…does environment…have something to do with it [food prices]? But I don’t link it to the environment. I would say no. There’s always been droughts, there’s always been floods, there’s always been dry seasons in parts of the year and wet seasons in parts of the year; and I don’t think we’re doing any worse as regards the environment as what we were perhaps 20 years ago. There’s been so much about it on the news lately, about icecaps and the difference it’s making on the environment, or the difference that it isn’t necessarily making on the environment. So I wouldn’t really link that to the price of food directly – not at all” (Workshop 16: Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

There was also a view that the market would sort out problems of availability:

“There’s another thing as well. If the price of food goes up it’s more of an incentive to produce food so you look at the UK. We don’t produce a lot of food in the UK. I used to live in the sticks in Yorkshire and y’now there was ... massive suicide because people really struggling. You had BSE and Foot and Mouth. Hundreds of farmers were killing themselves because their family business was just going to nothing and they couldn’t see a way out. But if food prices were high enough then actually... How much more is it going to cost to produce a pig? I don’t know. I wasn’t a farmer. But you kind-of think well actually maybe it’ll encourage more people, again supply and demand, increase in supply will bring down the cost.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Summary Points: Food Access and Availability

In discussions around food access and availability, participants displayed knowledge about the food system, its vulnerabilities and the potential consequences;

When asked about things that might affect food availability, participants highlighted two broad issues:

1. Environmental problems – the volcanic eruption in Iceland; extreme weather and experiences of snowfall in the winter of 2009/10; animal disease; however, climate change was only referred to explicitly in three of the workshops.


2. Political, economic and commercial factors – wars disrupting food supplies and global trade; trading policies; high fuel prices and associated strikes and shortages; global food shortages driving up food prices.

When asked about things that might affect the accessibility of food, participants tended to refer to household or local-level issues:

1. Personal injury, ill-health, problems with personal transport, or extreme weather;

2. Income was recognised as a key determinant of a household’s ability to access food.

The findings clearly show that very few participants envisaged a scenario where food would not be physically available or accessible ‘somehow’ or that any obstacles would not be merely temporary.

2.2 Food Price Rises: consumer perceptions and responses

The price of food is one of the key indicators of potential insecurity in the food system as far as consumers are concerned. The qualitative workshops explored consumer perceptions of food price rises from a number of perspectives: awareness of recent price increases; participants’ interpretations of the reasons behind price rises; and how they might respond to further price rises in the future.

Consumer awareness of food prices

In the workshops, respondents were first asked whether they had noticed any changes in food prices over the past two years. In response to this question, participants of all income brackets displayed a very detailed knowledge of food prices, the costs of individual items, how they have fluctuated, and differentials according to food stores, as illustrated by the following selection of quotes in Box 6:


The overwhelming majority of participants had noticed prices rising, particularly for bread, meat, fruit and vegetables, and dairy (particularly cheese). Having said this, some respondents (In Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock and Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End) queried the idea that food prices had risen. Participants in Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock, did not seem to have greatly noticed the price rises – for example, one participant did not do a habitual shop, bought more on impulse. Several participants pointed to the prevalence of certain very cheap commodities such as alcohol and chicken which act as ‘loss leaders’ to draw shoppers in to supermarkets:

“some of the poorer quality food, in some cases, is cheaper to draw people into the supermarkets” (Workshop11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Participants in rural Winkleigh noted that their local shops were more expensive than supermarkets.

A number of participants also pointed to the relationship between price and quality, arguing that although certain foodstuffs are cheap, they are also low quality. Box 7 illustrates this relationship:


Box 6: Awareness of food price changes

“Milk in Morrisons is £1.53 and if you go to Netto it is £1.09” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“I think that Tesco’s own tomatoes in a tin I think are 9 pence and that was only 18 months ago, now they are 49 pence” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“cheese that was 75p is now £1.25, so no more Philadelphia for me ” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham).

“…before it was always Heinz baked beans but they are 80p a tin now” (Workshop 14, ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

“I’ve noticed that certain products are cheaper for no apparent reason. Then you go again the following week and suddenly they’ve changed…” (Group 9: Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss on manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“I have become more aware of the prices now because I think you can go in one day and it’s a such price and you go in the following day and it’s gone up 5 pence, I know it’s only 5 pence it doesn’t sound a lot…It’s not the point, it’s the principle -But why has that gone up 5 pence, it was 5 pence less yesterday, you know, I’m just thinking and when you look at what it is and you are thinking well how is that relevant to, where has the price change gone on it, but like you say it all adds up, yeh, and it is annoying” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

“well like we said about bread - £1.29 a loaf - go back three years you probably got it for 80 pence, but the cost of the wheat which was the excuse for the price going up has now dropped to a similar level to what it was three years ago, but the price of bread hasn’t come down. Never does, same with fuel” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)


Box 7: The trade off between price and quality

Respondent A: “Well they [prices] have [come down] because you can buy a whole bird - a whole animal for sort of 2 pound odd – whereas I remember … a whole chicken for the whole family would be something that you had to wait for the weekend to have that family mealRespondent B: Yes it has come down but the £2 chicken from Asda, I mean quite honestly I wouldn’t feed it to my dogRespondent A: Yeah the quality has... Respondent B: CrapRespondent A: I see it as, you know if you want something and it is expensive then it’s more of a treat, because I have come to the conclusion that I would rather have something less often, and pay a bit more because we have too much meat in our diets anyway. It’s not like a sort of thing that you really need to have to keep your heath at an optimum level, so you appreciate it more when you have it less and ummm, I buy free range. I always buy free range chicken I don’t buy these horrible cheap ones actually that have been sitting in their own urine and growing a stupid rate I don’t buy them.” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive Greens’, Coventry)

“There’s lots of times in the past I’ve bought cheap meat and to be honest I won’t buy it now. It’s just not worth it. Like mince, for example, if you buy cheap mince for spaghetti Bolognese. You fry it up in the pan and you’ve got a pan of oil” (Workshop 7: Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“Well there are cheap alternatives, but some of it you wouldn’t give to your worst enemy” (Workshop 9, ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“I think you are always balancing it out – the quality of what you buy – there is no good buying cheapish grapes and they taste of nothing” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive Greens’, Coventry)

On feeding teenagers: “You’re just wasting your time giving them rubbish food. Because they turn up 10 minutes later wanting something else to eat” (Workshop 7: Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“I’ve had to downgrade all me cereals. You find that the own brands taste just as good, but the salt levels and sugar levels are quite bad” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

Consumer understanding of the reasons for rising food prices

Workshop participants were invited to give their views on the factors behind the food price rises. The findings indicate awareness amongst respondents of some of the key issues and challenges facing the food system. Many participants talked about the role of oil and fuel prices, and the heightened cost of transport, as illustrated in Box 8:

Some workshop participants talked about wider/associated economic problems such as inflation, financial speculation, profiteering and ‘greed’.

‘I think it’s got something to do with keeping down inflation, keeping the banks more steady’. (Workshop 9: Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

Research participants from both phases also identified increased costs throughout the whole food system. Within the workshops there were discussions around a range other factors including packaging, quality control and a perception of ‘raw ingredients’ and basic ‘commodities’ increasing in price. In addition, global-level problems and phenomena were also identified, and participants also raised these issues, pointing to such things as ‘more demand across the world’ (Workshop 7: Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon) and shortages of certain products such as wheat or rye. Workshop participants also pointed to the government as being responsible for food price rises:

‘I think it’s Government led as well. There are people out there that are deciding how to add things up. You’re always seeing Asda and Sainsburys doing like, doing price matches and all that kind of stuff so it’s not them that’s making the money because why would they do it? It’s someone else along the chain’. (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

In some of the rural workshops, respondents were critical of the Common Agricultural Policy:

“Well I think that instead of paying farmers not to farm the land, they should farm the land. Forget France with its over production – forget the Common Agricultural Policy – all they are doing is subsidizing French farmers to produce stuff they can’t get rid of. This country could be self-sufficient, producing its own food and it would be a reasonable cost for whatever it cost to produce the food.” (Workshop 13, ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“Respondent: But if they got rid of the some of Common Agricultural Policy subsidies and stopped subsidising farmers … the farmers would produce the right stuff - rather than be paid for empty fields – they aren’t getting proper price for their food but because they are getting subsidies for empty fields they are still surviving and can afford to be re-charged 9p a litre for their milk because they are getting £2,000 for an empty field.Facilitator: So you think that policy is leading to farmers producing less food?


Box 8: Consumer reasoning for food price rises

‘Energy is the key to all that…it takes energy to produce most of this food – combine harvesters don’t run on fresh air and excitement do they?’ [Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh]

‘So it goes all down the line and the cost of probably the big cost would be transport and fuel which has an affect on all food’ [Workshop 12: ‘Positive Greens’, Coventry]

“…all these prices depend on the price of petrol as well cause we all need to get to the shops and shipping of the goods…” [Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End]

Respondent: No, that policy is leading to us not paying realistic food prices across the board – so some things we are paying more for, and some things we pay less for because it’s all totally false. Facilitator: So what impact is that having? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?Respondent: I think it is a terrible thing. It’s not making farmers produce what is required and it is not making people think about what they are doing. It’s meaning that Spanish farmers are being paid a subsidy for producing tomatoes or apples that we used to grow in the Tamar Valley. It has a knock on effect on lots of things – air miles increase, food prices go up – get rid of that and then you get realistic food policy – food prices will be accurate because farmers will say “no we need this much”. Supermarkets pay proper prices for food because farmers [are] not paid massive subsidy for not growing food. Facilitator: The supermarkets wouldn’t squeeze the farmers even more?Respondent: No. It’s because they get the subsidy that the supermarkets can afford to squeeze the farmers.Facilitator: So you think that it’s the markets-distorting policies in the form of the Common Agricultural Policy which is causing an imbalance between supply and demand? Respondent: Yes…” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Respondent A: There’s probably enough food produced, it’s just not distributed and used correctly. Or as another example you take the wide open plains of America that’s over-producing - similar thing happens in this country. Some things we over-produce because the farmers are subsidised… that then gets shipped out to wherever it needs to be shipped to, whereas the farmers that need to be growing stuff to make us sufficient in food, they are not encouraged to do it because they are better off having set aside letting the land go fallowRespondent B: Being paid for growing nothingRespondent A: Being paid for growing nothing, stewardship of the land because -Respondent B: - There’s more profit in that than there is in making the foodRespondent A: It might sound like a deep seated conspiracy but at the end of it the EU don’t want us… to produce certain things and not be self-sufficient in everything which is the same in every country…” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

In some of the workshops, participants conveyed a perception that importing goods added cost, thereby contributing to price rises:

‘Cos obviously sometimes it’s brought over by plane and different methods of transport, so obviously that’s going to hike the prices up.’ (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Brimingham)

One workshop group discussed this idea at some length, and there was disagreement and confusion around the point, with one participant saying imported goods were cheaper and another arguing that importing added cost:

‘Well I thought we were importing it to get it cheaper so therefore why is everything going up?

So why are the prices going up, exactly then why if it’s dearer for us through the imports then why not invest in doing it here or however you do it, invest in more our farmers and that and make sure that our farmers get a good deal and then that price carries on to us’ (Workshop 14: sideline supporters’, Coventry)

The role of supermarkets was also highlighted by participants. In many of the workshops, there was discussion about the role played by supermarkets in rising food prices, most notably in relation to profit making; supermarkets were seen as extremely powerful actors in the food system and driven by profit. These views are shown in Box 9:


Box 10 illustrates that many participants, notably from the rural workshops, felt that farmers were not treated fairly by supermarkets. This was particularly in relation to the pay they gave farmers as well as the control they had over pricing, which was seen as unfairly low.


Box 9: The power of supermarkets

“The big supermarkets they have immense power just being what they are because they are so big, they will probably set the prices more than anything else.

...I’d say if you have got a monopoly like some of the big shops have when you can say the shareholders can say right we want a bigger cut now so you put your prices up and get more dividends and things like that, people are earning money and earning profits and a decent salary” (Workshop 6: ‘Urban Household that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Coventry)

“If people are spending less then the supermarkets or whatever are going to put the prices up higher to compensate for that” (Workshop 10, ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

“…two or three generations ago the guy who sold food to me went to the local tailor and bought his clothes and the money stayed in the towns and villages. Now it goes to Tescos, it goes to Asda or Morrissons...it doesn’t come back, it doesn’t stay local”“It goes on a yacht”“It’s not my yacht!” (Workshop 7: Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

Respondent A: I think its just the amount of power they have so although its difficult to see now how they could affect food security but if there were food shortages – they have so much power - they are the ones driving things – and they aren’t an elected Government so if there were shortages of milk how would they manage that – they will be ones managing that not the Government – Tesco could have a lot of power over what happens.Facilitator: What do we feel about this – these unelected people having a controlling influence over us? Respondent A: During fuel problems –shortage of fuels – all of petrol stations limited petrol to £10 – there was a limit. Supermarkets could easily say ok 2 pints of milk per customer and they have power over whole distribution of goods – and they are unelected. If say there is a family of 10 (if it there is such a thing) – they have 2 pints and an old pensioner gets 2 pints – it’s just too much power.Respondent B: Just imagine what would happen to prices if Tesco for example, to take a case in point – they have this market domination curve they are out to destroy smaller retailers – so they open these small 24 hour outlets in centre of towns say like Tavistock – what they trying to destroy is the little fruit and veg shops and grocery shops –ultimately when you get a monopoly situation you lose control, the consumer loses control over the price and at the end of the day Mr O’Leary has only got one thing in mind, and that is to make as much money for the Tesco shareholders, and if we forget that we forget what drives Tesco and Morrisons and Sainsburys and the rest of them…” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)


Box 10: The relationship between supermarkets and farmers

“But farmers generally are treated badly by the big supermarkets – they are ripped off” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“I’ve got a cousin who lives in Wales who is a farmer. He suffered when the cost of lambs went right down. I think he was getting £50 a lamb. There is no need for that. We could produce our own food. Why depend on foreign food? But it’s nice to have a banana or an orange” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“You know, the cost of lamb in a supermarket is huge, and yet we know from what farmers are telling us, is that what they are actually being paid very, very little for these animals….. so again there is a big disparity between what the suppliers …..the actual producers are getting on the one hand and what is being charged in the supermarket and it’s almost like, kind of, a bit of strong arm premium pricing going on……” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“If you think, there are farmers round here that produce lamb and they go off to market and they get bought as live animals by whoever supermarket chains and the supermarkets can still import lamb from New Zealand half way round the world and sell it cheaper than we can produce it” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“Facilitator: Why have we seen these upward trends in food prices? What do you think is behind it?Respondent 1: I think costs because there is on organisations like supermarkets now are more accountable they have to be, they have to make sure what they are saying is appropriate like the sell by dates and stuff like that, they have always got to work to that because of the litigious society. With people you have got to be very careful now so they have got to be careful so I guess they pass that onto all their suppliers so they have got to make sure I guess some like Sainsbury’s sends people out to inspect farms where food comes from so they are making the farmers toe a particular standard.Facilitator: Yeah so the cost of actually producing...Respondent 1: So it goes all down the line and the cost of probably the big cost would be transport and fuel which has an affect on all foodRespondent 2: Surprisingly farmers are actually getting less, because I work for Massey Ferguson and have I have a lot of contact with the farmers and some of them, well quite a lot of them, are in a lot of trouble, as they were saying the supermarkets control the price for them and yet they are putting the prices up to us.Respondent 3: I see Tesco are making stupid amounts of money” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Respondent A: I think some of the supermarkets are pretty scary. For instance Tesco – I wouldn’t shop there – they’ve got their fingers in every pie and they must be making millions out of people who earn nothing – they shouldn’t be allowed to do that stuff.Facilitator: Is that affecting our ability to feed ourselves though?Respondent A: I don’t know – I mean you wonder how much they are distorting it because they have so much power – how much percentage of the market do they have – you start to think well who is running this – what is the driving force behind what is being put on the shelves?Respondent B: But if someone like Tesco wanted to put say 2p on a pint of milk would you notice that? I don’t believe that anyone who spends £100 or £200 per week on their food bill will notice an increase like that.Respondent A: That’s what they rely on though isn’t it – exactly thatRespondent B: But if that 2p went to farmer who produced that milk it would make all the difference in the world to them but it makes no different this end.Respondent A: You know the minute you walk into that shop that you are being manipulated. Respondent B: Oh yesRespondent C: But that is unfair – having put my ethics to one side – I actually like Tesco because you can buy a large quantity of yeast and lots of whole-foods as in cheap quantities, so I actually I’m quite happy to shop in there.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Consumer responses to price rises

A majority of project participants had noticed food prices increasing, and many had started to change their shopping strategies:

‘You’ve got be careful what you’re buying now haven’t you with the prices going up. You’ve got to pick and choose. Before you used to buy things like weren’t really necessary just buy as like treats and now we’ve cut the treats down and buy more what’s necessary...’ (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Workshop discussions indicated that there was one type of food product that project participants were particularly trying to save money on: meat. Discussions highlighted situations where participants were cutting back on meat purchases, substituting meat for other products such as quorn, or buying cheaper cuts. In response to a prompt around whether chicken would ever get too expensive, there were mixed responses from within and between the workshop groups, with some saying that it was a versatile meat that they wouldn’t do without, and others saying they would give up chicken and other meat (or certain meats) completely. Some respondents reported buying in bulk e.g. a whole lamb for the freezer – much cheaper than buying all the separate cuts (Workshop 5;), but prohibitive for some because of the outlay up front (£85 per lamb). Many recognized that cutting back on meat was an option for reducing costs which would not be bad for their health. Generally agreed that meat bought from a butcher rather than the supermarket would be better quality.

The research findings also indicated that people are now much more likely to look for food bargains, and take advantage of offers in supermarkets. Participants talked about making use of ‘buy one get one free’ and other offers:

“If you look at... organic meat, free range, that’s always really expensive. But you can always…there’s always stuff that’s on a deal. Like 2 for 1. So if you’re a bit savvy like that, you don’t necessarily have to get the “value” or whatever, you can have expensive stuff. There’s always something expensive on offer. Like Cathedral City cheese is really really expensive but they do like 2 for 1 offer so, I just do that really. Get whatever’s on offer.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Swapping brands was also identified as a cost-saving strategy employed by a number of participants:

“I think the majority of time it’s made in the same factory” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham).

“With me I just sort of like try if it’s ok I’m thinking ‘oh well that wasn’t too bad actually I was expecting it to be awful and it wasn’t’, so then I will go back to it. If I try a cheaper brand I think ‘Oh no I can really taste that’s horrible’, then no I will go back to the one that I knew would, you know they’d [the children] clear their plates with. Like some of the meats I’ve had from Tescos and they are like rubber, so that’s why I have changed and gone back to sort of getting my meat from the butchers, yeh, because they are so full of water to me, in the supermarkets you put them in the oven and you’ve got like chicken breasts and you put them in the oven and it’s like you open the foil and where’s it gone? And it is, I did ask the butcher why is it I put a piece of meat in the oven and I know the size of it and when it comes out of the oven ‘am I a bad cook and I’ve shrunk the meat? Where’s it gone? And he says ‘no, it’s because they are pumped full of water and you know the wheat protein’, whatever they use and I’ve thought ‘oh right ok’ and he says ‘try this one’ and I tried his and I just loved it straight away, could notice the difference and that’s why I’ve gone back to the butchers for all my meat” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

Furthermore, findings from the workshops suggest that some participants were also changing where they buy their food from, leaving supermarket chains and turning instead to discount supermarket chains, local markets, and other local food outlets (e.g. several participants mentioned buying eggs from farm shops as being much cheaper than supermarket eggs). In


some cases these discussions were in a context of ‘shopping around’, in order to get the cheapest products. Respondents also indicated that they now throw away less food:

“I used to be very wasteful and throw things away. I always used to buy things and then I used to bin then, whereas now I think “will you eat that?” especially with fruit – it was always going off and binning it. Now I’m thinking I’m not going to buy it if I’m not going to eat it. So I do tend to watch what I buy, you know perishable and things” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

In addition to changes in food purchasing behaviours, workshop discussions also revealed changes in household cooking practices, with some participants describing how they were cooking more meals from scratch, in response to perceptions that this is cheaper than buying certain ready-made products (also, slow cooking, batch cooking and freezing). Similarly, and as an extension to discussions around food wastage, some participants talked about how they were now freezing more food, either in terms of saving any leftover food, or cooking in bulk and storing portions for a later date:

‘What I do tend to do now is buy some things in bulk, make it and put it in the freezer. So if I’m making certain things I’ll make a few and then freeze them so it’s more economical that way.’ (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“I was just thinking you are more careful - often I am just cooking for me and where I was cooking for myself you don’t go round buying lots of packets of vegetables and stuff because you end up a lot of stuff left over so I think you might adapt what you buy to take that factor into account.” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Consumer perceptions of future food price rises

Participants found it very difficult to put a price on when food would become too expensive, because food is an essential and so people would have to pay for it, whatever price it reached. They would obviously have to cut back their other expenditure to eat. It was often felt by participants that they would have to eat poorer quality food if prices increased:

You’ll just be getting bad quality chicken. It’ll be cheaper and cheaper. Cheaper option, cheaper option, and eventually you must be eating rubbish basically rather than quality. What the Government are saying, that doesn’t really work. They’re telling you to have 5-a-day portions, I’m going off at a tangent here, but people can’t afford it. So what do you do? (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

As one person said, she could not buy any less food, so the only alternative would be to go for cheaper products.

Many respondents (from a range of workshops, so not limited to low-income consumers) recognised that reactions to price changes would be dependent on household income:

“It depends on your income doesn’t it? We are talking here about what it costs to live in the way of food for a week. And the relevance of that depends on your income” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“If your income is increasing in parallel with the cost of living, then it’s not such an issue – it becomes an issue if you happen to be in a particular group in society where that doesn’t happen” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Interestingly, one of the respondents in the more affluent group from Tavistock felt that even those participants on higher incomes would modify their behaviour in light of the recession. For example, respondents may not wish to be ‘seen’ eating out so frequently not only because of the


expense, but because of social expectations. Similarly, increased environmental awareness would put pressure on peoples’ consumption behaviour:

“I think also for people in this room I would guess – if their income stays as they are, or maybe increases… then I think the social dynamics [that] will come into play – one in which, if you drive a fat car that guzzles fuel that maybe you’ll feel a bit self-conscious … all these environmental issues, in a place like we are living in, I think are becoming more and more significant, and more and more in people’s, in the forefront of their thoughts in terms of how they behave. So I don’t think it is going to be acceptable, whether you can afford a Mercedes S class or not, people will not buy it because they just think they might be a social leper.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Some workshop participants also talked about growing more of their own food, for example:

Respondent A: “I suppose if it really came to this kind of scenario [ie where food and energy bills become more expensive], it would be the case that you’d get the basics in stock and then you’d start keeping chickens for eggs, you’d grow your own vegetables. If it really came to the point where it would be really expensive to buy, it would be cheaper to grow them yourself.Respondent B: It’s like going back to days of war, isn’t it?Respondent A: - and then you’d share it out between friends and family, you’d swap (Workshop 10: ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

Some respondents recognised that growing your own food would not necessarily be cheaper, but it had other benefits, and others wanted to grow food but didn’t have time:

“It’s not so much cheaper…you just get more for your time and your money. You know where it’s come from, it’s better to eat…When you don’t buy potatoes for 6/7 weeks of the year it doesn’t sound a lot, but everything helps. That was the biggest thing I did about prices” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“I would certainly try and grow more. That’s a good one, grow more. It would be having the time to do it. Yeah. I have quite a big garden but I tend to find that by the time I have been to work all day the only time that I have really got is the weekend and then you’ve got washing to do, and ironing to do, and supermarket shopping things like that. But certainly if I had more time I would certainly like to grow.” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Box 11 illustrates that several respondents referred back to the war and the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh):


Some respondents found it difficult to envisage how they might respond to future price rises:

“These are the sort of things you don’t think about until they affect you. If, for example, you go out and buy a loaf of bread and all of a sudden it is £2 then you are going to start thinking ‘what is going on here?” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Workshop participants were invited to discuss whether it was better for food prices to be stable or to fluctuate in the future. Overall, the findings suggest that views on this are quite evenly split. There was no clear consensus, with some participants arguing for stability because it would help them to plan:

“I think it would be a good idea to have a standard price of main commodities like say bread and milk - the basic things” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“For people on benefits, it [ie price stability] would help them because they would have some consistency. They get x amount of pounds each week and they know how much they can spend on food.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)


Box 11: ‘Dunkirk spirit’

“If you’ve gone through the war years with rationing and things like that where they really had to tighten their belt in those days Yep and .. use little bits of this and little bits of butter and little bits of… And they had to adapt and in a strange kind of way you probably, made you appreciate a lot of things” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“We did without when we were kids. When we were kids we weren’t brought up in times of plenty. We’ve done it once, we’ll do it again” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“Maybe it would do us all good it we were to go back 50 years – the good old days” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“Yeh, so we could go complete reverse and go back to basics, you know, go back to asking Grandma, right what were those good old fashioned cooking lessons?YehThe basics because they had to make do with the food that they had with the rations and everything, you know, they didn’t have the luxuries like that, maybe we’re just too greedy and expect – I fancy an orange there should be one in the shop I can buy” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

“We have to compromise. Not being funny here, but older people…you go back to war-time food – they ate better – you might say they were hungry – well not a lot of the time, because they had to grow it. They had bread, but they had to make it – they were healthier.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Later in discussion, when asked if respondent would want to go back to that, answer was “No, nobody would like it but at end of the day if you only need so much carbohydrate and so much protein for a week, then it’s no big problem is it? “ (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Others felt they could take advantage of fluctuating prices to get cheap foods. The debate is illustrated by this exchange from Workshop 7 in Derby:

Facilitator: OK. So there’s some people prefer stability then. Why would you prefer that?Respondent A: You know where you stand. You get paid monthly. Your wage doesn’t go up and down every month. Oh this month I’ll suddenly get £20-£30 more so what I’ll go and spend £20-£30 more on my shopping?! Nothing else in life changes like that but prices in the supermarket do. And yet I don’t get paid any differently. My mortgage if I didn’t have it on a fixed rate could be like that, so why do I put it on a fixed rate?Facilitator: OK that’s an argument in favour of stability. It helps you planRespondent A: Also, inflation rate is over a year isn’t it?Facilitator: You felt it was better to have changing prices.Respondent B: I think for me it gives me variety and flexibility so I can have a bigger selection. Whereas if say steak was always the price steak was we’d never eat it. Or lamb. So we’d never have those joints. You can still have the same amount of food shopping but it gives you more choice as in variety during the week” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

It was clear, however, that participants did not want prices to become stable at a high cost, particularly for healthy foods:

“It would depend on the stability of prices, because if it was the things that you needed in your diet that are expensive like if fruit and veg stayed really expensive then it would be a bad thing because people would start eating much worse because they would stop buying fruit and veg if they stay at a high cost, but if there were offers some weeks you would have strawberries which some weeks you wouldn’t have if everything was high all the time” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Throughout the workshops there were a number of discussions around how people would respond to increasingly high food prices in the future, particularly in relation to prioritising expenditure, such as paying for rising heating bills versus rising food bills.

“All the food’s going up but the money’s not going up. We’re not getting increases in our wages to match. I don’t get increases in my money to be able to go and buy fresh and nice meals and that, home-cooked meals…So I have to buy what I can afford for me and my kids as long as they’re fed” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

“You have to buy food. You can live without heat, but you can’t live without food. And I couldn’t bear the thought of my kids being hungry. We’ve gone without gas. We had to. In the winter we put something like £45 a week in the gas and £20 in the electric…” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

Evidently, those on lower incomes had fewer options in terms of reducing their expenditure; some respondents were clear that they had already cut back on non-food expenses, and others felt that the only way to reduce expenditure was to buy poorer quality food.

Summary points: consumer perceptions of, and responses to food price rises

The participants of all income brackets displayed a very detailed knowledge of food prices, the costs of individual items, how they have fluctuated, and differentials according to food stores.

The overwhelming majority of participants had noticed prices rising in recent years, particularly for bread, meat, fruit and vegetables and dairy (particularly cheese).

In relation to consumer understandings of recent price rises, a number of key reasons were identified by participants:

Impact of the economic crisis and recession;


Other economic problems such as inflation, financial speculation, profiteering and greed;

Increased costs throughout the whole food system (packaging, quality control, costs of raw ingredients);

Global problems such as growing demand and crop shortages; Government policies (notably the Common Agricultural Policy) Cost added through importing goods; The role of supermarkets in driving up prices

Participants reported changing shopping and cooking behaviours in response to the food price rises, including:

Trying to cut down on meat consumption; Searching for food ‘bargains’; Swapping to cheaper brands; Changing supermarket and shopping from a discount supermarket chain; Cooking more meals from scratch; Wasting less food; Freezing food and cooking in bulk

In discussions around future food price rises, many participants found it difficult to put a price on when food would become too expensive and some found it difficult to envisage how they would respond to future food price rises.

When participants were asked whether fluctuating or stable prices were preferable, there was no consensus across the workshops – some felt that fluctuating prices would enable them to buy more expensive foods when they dipped in price and others felt that stable prices might mean that prices were consistently high, which would not be desirable, particularly when it came to healthy foods.

2.3 Consumer understandings of the term ‘food security’

The aim in this section is to illustrate the ways in which participants discussed food security. During workshops, people were first asked whether they had ever heard of ‘food security’, and only one or two had. The following material demonstrates that when pushed to consider what the unfamiliar term ‘food security’ might mean, the dominant response was to conceptualise food security primarily in terms of ‘food safety’ and a range of potential threats to food safety was identified around food content. Secondly, the origin of food, and clear labelling of its contents were seen as important indicators of food safety – although as shown in the qualitative material which follows, consumer attitudes to food labelling are often ambiguous. Finally, when asked to consider the extent to which the UK enjoys a state of ‘food security’, the responses revealed a strong sense that full food security, using the Defra definition as the criteria for assessment, has not been achieved.

Food security as food safety

The results from the online survey and the workshops are broadly similar, in that the same themes could be identified in each data set. The qualitative data generated from workshops, however, allow us to explore in more depth the nuances of peoples’ responses to the concept of food security. Peoples’ ideas about what constitutes ‘unsafe’ food clearly varied. Safe food could mean food that was not genetically modified or irradiated, and food that contained as few chemicals and pesticides as possible. For example:

“Pesticides in the food – should we have them in foods? What has the food been sprayed with?” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“GM foods. So you know that you’re actually getting an actual, not the modified GM” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)


It could mean food that did not have too much salt or calories in it, and food that is free from poisons and bacteria. Finally, safe food is that which has not been ‘tampered’ with or ‘contaminated’ in any way, as illustrated by the following quotes (Box 12) from workshop participants:

Respondents often linked food security to the packaging and labelling of products:

“Is it the actual security of what’s in the product itself? That it’s not full of poisons of various types. And does this involve the packaging side of things as well?” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“I would say that you were certain that the food you’re eating is not going to harm you as in it’s not got salmonella or stuff like that. You can be sure. Or also you can be sure that what it says on the packet is what it actually is... a bit of everything really.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Food labelling was discussed in virtually all the workshops, and there was a strong sense of confusion and mistrust around food labels. Workshop participants evidently wanted labels to tell them where food comes from and what it contains. Crucially, they also wanted to be able to believe in food labels and on the basis of this it is important to stress that accurate and trustworthy labelling is an important part of instilling a sense of food security amongst consumers as Box 13 demonstrates:


Box 12: ‘Contaminated’ food

Is that like preventing razor blades in baby foods? (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“Contamination, put glass in baby food and things like that, would it mean that?” (Workshop 6: ‘Urban Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Coventry)

“Well there’s always geezers who like to blow themselves up and all that, but one day they might get an intelligent one that doesn’t want to kill himself, and he might go ‘job’s done’ in a local Heinz factory and chuck a load of cyanide into there” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

At the same time, however, workshop participants presented ambiguous attitudes towards labelling; whilst many called for clear and trustworthy labels of origin and content, there was also much critical discussion around ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates, and how these could be unhelpful or over cautious, thereby undermining food security and promoting wastage. Box 9 shows that sell buy dates were topical in a number of workshops:


Box 13: Labelling

“And what about the security of knowing where it’s coming from – where you can identify where it’s come from, you know some relabelled packet of potting meat that somebody now suddenly said you know.... ‘top quality beef’; so being secure in knowing where it’s come from and how it’s been created, how it’s made and that would seem to be an idea within food security, securely knowing where it’s come from” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Why isn’t the food in supermarkets actually labelled properly so you could see whether it is actually from Britain? Because if it shows it comes from Britain, I’m all for supporting our farmers and I would much prefer to buy something that’s been killed in England. I know that sounds terrible but I’d prefer to buy produce that comes from my own country to help support our country, but they don’t even label it clearly in shops” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

“To me, how it’s processed and where it’s come from, yeah, I watched a documentary about how chicken and meat was – I’m going to say farmed – but not farmed, how it was cleaned and bleached and all that kind of stuff, and I think that’s what it means to me, how it’s all prepared.” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

“If you go to the supermarket and it says “fresh chicken” to me, is it? Is it all chicken? ‘cos they put water in don’t they? That’s what I think it means.” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

“Quality of food. So say you buy chicken nuggets, to have so much percent chicken in it, not the MRM is it? – mechanically removed meat? We don’t want to eat what could go into dog food” (Workshop 2: ‘Urban long term low income households with dependent children’, Coventry)

“Respondent 1: Has it got anything in it that’s actually healthy, not a load of rubbish. Chemicals. You can say chicken again ‘cos everyone loves chicken, you can actually put something into something to make it taste like chicken, but they can call it chicken, and as long as it’s got more than 1% chicken in it is it 1% or?Respondent 2: If it has it in, then it’s chicken!” (Workshop 2: ‘Urban long term low income households with dependent children’, Coventry)

The research findings suggest that where participants made links between labelling and ‘food security’ as ‘food safety’, they were concerned about being able to trust where food comes from and be confident about how it has been produced and what is inside it; their concern was for legitimacy and genuineness of food.


Box 14: Sell by dates

“…If you’ve got stuff that is near its sell-by date – now the date is just a con – you know if it’s fresh – best steak is not red, it’s better darker – so long as you know your product then you judge for yourself.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“like today I bought beef at half price, and it’s still not ready to eat – it will be ready in 3 days time – and I haven’t poisoned anyone yet” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“they [i.e. supermarkets] do it on purpose these dates – you know, throw it away and you have to go and buy again” (same person as above?) (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“I can’t be bothered with these sell by dates. I ate some custard yesterday – Bird’s custard you buy in a packet and I looked at the date and it was 2 years out of date – it still had it, it was alright.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“I must say I don’t take notice of dates on food anymore because some of them are ridiculous - Oh yes they are – I have eaten meat and fish that are several days out of date code and they have been fine – I’m still here and a few bugs are good for you – I think some of the dates are ridiculous – absolutely ridiculous.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“Respondent A: I think you don’t just have to worry about all these sell by dates for a start. They are over done.Respondent B: I don’t worry about that too much now. I watched a programme that showed that actually it’s perfectly ok. If you haven’t got a really stupidly weakened immune system it’s actually ok ...Respondent A: There was a fella there that ate some chicken that was in a tin and it was this chicken or the tin if you like was produced in 1946 or something and he ate it a couple of years ago or whatever and he was absolutely fine” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Respondent A: I think that adds to our paranoia’s a bit though because years ago you know if you went to the butchers and you got some food there was no dates on it you just had to really rely on your own sense of well, does it smell? You know, people got on fairly well then. I think these sell by dates and use by dates make people throw things away that don’t need to be. I mean something isn’t suddenly going to go horrible after midnight after such and such a date – become you know inedible. Well use your common sense that was only a day ago, is it really suddenly going to kill me?Respondent B: That’s part of the problem really this country has gone health and safety mad hasn’t it, it’s just gone over the top it’s an industry isn’t it, people earn a living out of it[general agreement from the group on this point] (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Food security as ensuring a constant supply of food

In addition to the idea of food ‘security’ as food ‘safety’, the issue of food supply was also discussed by workshop participants, as illustrated in Box 15.


Box 15: Food security and supply

“Does it mean sort of whether food will continue to be available at the sort of levels that we know it now with population growth and all the rest of it?” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“It implies… that you are taking measures to protect your food supply” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“I think it means the security of supply as opposed to the safety of the food” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“I would presume it would be securing food for people whatever wage they are on, so that everybody can have food as a necessity, rather than a luxury” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“Be able to live without having to cut down on the amount of electric you use or you know food, we’ve got water food, somewhere to live i.e. shelter. These are all necessities everything else is a luxury isn’t it?” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

Box 16 illustrates that a few workshop respondents developed their ideas on what might affect food supply through reference to environmental and political economic threats to food production:

Others thought food security was to do with the balance of imported food in relation to domestically produced food, and also with ensuring that enough food would be imported to meet demand:

“I thought it was to do with the amount of food you import versus what you produce yourself.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“Is that anything to do with the imports and exports? The security of like making sure that this country has the products coming in so we don’t get the shortages of food and obviously then that’s where the prices go sky high…” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

Do people think food security exists in the UK?

In a further exercise to encourage respondents to consider the meaning of food security, participants were asked whether they thought that the UK had achieved food security, according to the Defra definition. This question prompted a range of responses but the overall sense was that food security has been partially achieved, in that food is widely available and accessible, as illustrated by comments such as these in Box 17:


Box 16: Political and environmental threats to food supply

“Food Security to me is where your food’s coming from and whether it’s still going to be there. The idea of things like the honey bee. If the honey bee disappears then we run out of food; it’s not going to be there if there’s nothing to pollinate the food. So we’re not going to get anything else. To me that’s food security” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon - from one of the few people who had heard of the term]

“You’ve got things like wheat fields and they turn that over to biofuels. So you’re losing, less ground so that’s food security cos it’s not always going to be there and that will push the prices up.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“There is the potential conflict with interests with biofuels and land being given over to biofuel production compared to land given over to food production.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Box 18 highlights the fact that a minority of respondents raised concerns about the limits to national self-sufficiency should a crisis arise:


Box 17: Food security in the UK?

“… anywhere in the country you are going to be able to access food and at a reasonably affordable price – there is always going to be a Lidl and Aldi on a bus route – it might not be brilliant but it will be edible and sufficient” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“But compared also to our past surely there is more food and food outlets, everything sells food now doesn’t it? You can’t go to BP and… you are just inundated with women shoppers going round the BP garage shopping for the week it’s ridiculous, everybody sells the bloody stuff it does your head in!” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“But then no one is ever actually starving are they? There is more problem over obesity than the other way” “Yes”“So you know if food is so expensive how come there are all these obese people around? (Workshop 10: ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

Box 18: Limits to national self sufficiency

“Because of the way we are I don’t believe we have food security, because like I say if anyone goes to war or anything like that we haven’t got enough food grown in this country to supply everybody, we haven’t got food security” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“I don’t think we have that situation [food security]. Number 1 it’s because of the amount that we depend on importing food to this country and if there is a problem in another part of the world food security in this country is going be dramatically impacted” (Workshop 6: ‘Urban Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Coventry)

“If we went to war we would be knackered because we don’t produce enough to be self-sufficient, so if we went to war and we were an island again we wouldn’t last very long. And we’ve lost our independence when it comes to local produce after world war 2 there wasn’t anything and the Government threw so much money into farming and suddenly we could feed ourselves in this country whereas now they have put so much on farmers they can’t make any more money and there’s less than a quarter of what there was back then and there’s no way if this place went to war that farmers could produce enough to feed this country, there would be cannibalism” (Workshop 8: ‘Rural Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Borrowash)

These concerns were voiced by just a handful of participants, and at the other end of the spectrum, one or two people (total number of participants was 122) felt very confident that the country’s food demands would be met through international trade:

“The availability thing can only get better as internationally y’know not that the internet brings you food, but like flying more, more airports opening. In the past, obviously you got your food from your country because you couldn’t get it from anywhere else. But now you’ve got all the ways. Internationally everyone’s closer, aren’t they?” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

By far the most heated discussions occurred over the question of the affordability of food in general and healthy or nutritious food in particular. In almost all of the workshops, at least one or two respondents questioned the affordability of food for all, particularly healthy food. This point was also raised in the discussions around access and availability which are detailed earlier in this report. Respondents recognised that ‘affordability’ (and hence accessibility and availability) are dependent on personal circumstances which is reflected in Box 19.


Box 19: Food is not affordable for everyone

“Yes, it’s available, it’s accessible. Affordable, that’s a bit iffy that one.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“Yeah, but is it available to everyone if they can’t afford it? This is a catch-22 situation. They want it available for everybody, yet they can’t afford it so it’s not actually available” (Workshop 2: ‘Urban long term low income households with dependent children’, Coventry)

“I also think that food is not affordable at all in this country as well. It is very expensive even though we all purchase it. That’s because we have to, but it’s not affordable” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

“I don’t think it can ever be affordable for everybody…there’s always going to be poverty” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“How would you measure affordable? I mean if someone is homeless on the streets then they’re relying on someone else giving them free food aren’t they, so it can’t be can it?” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“There is more stuff available and we have got better access to it but I think from an affordable point of view looking back to when I was a kid everybody used to get decent food but I mean now I don’t know how true it is but there are so many kids that are living under the poverty line and they are not getting nutritious food” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“… you know you try the best you can for your children especially but most of the foods that are healthy for you are the most expensive” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“But if you were to take that as a definition by this very definition they are saying that anyone for example who is unemployed, yeh, and is living on what was it £49 a week should be able to eat breakfast lunch and dinner seven days a week and still have money left over to clothe themselves” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“Well food is always available, where there’s a will there’s a way, you will always get to it, the affordability is the problem” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

Conversations around the affordability of healthy food provoked some divergent opinions, with some respondents drawing on their own personal experience to illustrate the difficulties of securing a healthy diet for themselves or their families. For example, a mother from (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh) explained: “It affects your eating habits as well because…you are always going for the cheapest thing and it affects your health.” She said, “we eat microwave meals and pizzas and I dread to think what it’s doing to me”. She said her children don’t like them either, but she buys them because they are cheap. Another mother, this time from (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry) said “Fruit and vegetables are so expensive and you’re meant to have five a day. How can adults afford to give their children 5 fruit and vegetables a day when it’s horrendously expensive? On the crisps and that it’s buy one, get one free, but it’s not on the vegetables.” Many parents also pointed out that junk foods are cheap and widely advertised to appeal to children in particular. Such views are reiterated in Box 20.


Box 19(continued): Food is not affordable for everyone

“what is affordable to one person might not be affordable to someone else. Where you have got limited incomes I still say that those people should be able to buy those staple foods at a reasonable price.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“ ‘Safe and nutritious’ [food] for everybody, then everybody should be able to afford it - but they can’t”“People on benefits all their lives, I don’t see how they can afford” “It’s dear enough when you’re working, so when you’re out of work - it’s not affordable.”“Generally, but you could put on your suggestion paper, that obviously most people will say probably yes to that – food is generally affordable - but being able to buy what you want – that is where the affordable bit can be split ...” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“It’s getting less and less as the supermarkets get bigger and bigger, the smaller village shops are shutting so it’s not affordable for all. . .” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“Lots of people’s food does not enable them to have an active life-style.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“ Cheap food isn’t always nutritious...” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

“In a way no, in a way yes. If you work in the public services and your pay has just been frozen for the next 3 years and food prices go up then you’ve instantly been affected haven’t you?” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

Box 20: Junk food

“The junk foods are well accessible and well cheap. When you’re shopping with your children it’s so hard because they’re like ‘I want this’ and they start putting things in your basket…” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

“The adverts as well, they don’t help. Trying to buy nutritious food and you’ve got stupid adverts for like Iced Gems , Pringles 2-for-1 “these are half price mum!” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

“Yeah, so you use the argument that it is too expensive and they get wise to that…”

“Mac-y-D. You can’t go past a McDonalds. My little boy’s like “I want a Mac-y-D” and he doesn’t really eat it either. He just wants the toys” (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

“Unfortunately it’s to do with advertising, poorer families are specifically targeted by advertisers to buy junk food. It’s exactly the same as they are targeted to buy cigarettes, they are targeted by cheap lager super strength lager ...” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

Box 21 conveys the point that some respondents also recognised that obesity was linked to quality of food, as much as quantity:

However, a minority of participants questioned whether a cheaper diet was necessarily less healthy, and argued instead that if people would cook ‘proper’ meals from scratch, they would be able to feed themselves and their families very well. The reasons why respondents were not eating healthy diets are portrayed in Box 22, these included lack of education, lack of time, laziness and ‘poor choices’:


Box 21: Quality of food and obesity

“If healthy food is more expensive then they are going to be forced, if they [low income consumers] don’t have a lot of money, they are going to be forced to have the less nutritious food, and that will make them more obese and other things” (Workshop 10: ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

“I think a lot of food isn’t that nutritious and I think some of the cheaper brands are not as nutritious as some of the more expensive brands in general, so yeah probably the more people cut down what they are paying for food, the less nutritious it is probably going to be as a general rule” (Workshop 6: ‘Urban Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Coventry)

“Frozen food is quite often really cheap isn’t it for families you know they’ll buy and get that BOGOFF thing won’t they so they will be buy loads of beef burgers that aren’t particularly good for them because they have got to feed their families” (Workshop 10: ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

“…there is so much food on sale that is not nutritious. I find that quite appalling actually that some things are so bad they should not be considered to be food.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Box 22: Reasons for making poor food choices

“I don’t think that’s cost I think that is education they are not educated to eat a balanced diet” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“I think it’s sometimes about poor choices that people make and I think if you really put your mind to it you can have a really healthy diet” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Without having been there it’s difficult to comment entirely I accept that, but it seems to me if you go and buy steak and kidney pie and chips you can probably get a healthy meal for less than that” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Well, we could afford a decent bag of carrots instead of a wide screen television for example. We sometimes make the wrong choices, buy the cheap beer …..” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“It’s too easy isn’t it? And it’s not exactly expensive any more. The amount of leaflets I get through my door 2-for-1 it used to be like if you got a pizza from Dominos really expensive like £15 for pizza, now it’s almost cheaper and less time consuming and perhaps using the energy of your oven to get take-away anyway” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“Everybody’s going to be able to get nutritious food if they want, it’s whether you’re educated to know what you want to put into your body in the first place.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Summary points: Consumer understandings of the term ‘food security’

The vast majority of participants had never heard of the term ‘food security’ (only two people had – total number of workshop participants was 122);

The dominant response when prompted to consider what it might mean, was to cite issues of food safety. The origin of food and clear food labelling were seen as important indicators of food safety;

Whilst discussions around labelling revealed a strong sense of confusion and distrust of food labels, there was also much critical discussion around ‘best before’ and ‘use by dates’ and how these could be unhelpful or overcautious. The research suggests that where links were made between labelling and food security (as food safety), there were concerned about being able to trust the legitimacy and genuineness of the food;

Many workshop participants also talked about food security in relation to ensuring and supply of food to feed the population this was referred to at various geographical scales including the global, national, local or household.

When asked about whether food security had been achieved in the UK, the overall sense was that food security had been partially achieved in so far as food was widely available and accessible, however the affordability of food in the UK was questioned in all of the workshops.

2.4 Ensuring Food Security: Roles and Responsibilities in the Food System

The final theme of the workshops explored project participant expectations of government and other actors in the food system in relation to food security. From both the quantitative and qualitative phases of the research, findings suggest that consumers have high expectations of government, and generally feel that it should take a considerable amount of responsibility for ensuring food security. However, the workshop results also reveal that this high expectation was tempered by an understanding of the complex relationships operating between different actors in the food system, and by a recognition of the powerful role of retailers. In addition, project participants problematized their own roles and responsibilities and debated these at some length. They did not, however, present a clear consensus on this aspect, and struggled to establish clear alternative behaviours which consumers could adopt in order to help ensure better food security.

In each workshop, participants were invited to work in small groups to award the five players in the food system (food producers, processors, retailers, consumers and government) a score to indicate how responsible they should be for ensuring food security in terms of food access, availability, affordability and quality (with one being ‘least responsible’ and five being ‘most responsible’).


The Figure below (Figure 22) is an amalgamation of deliberations from across all the workshop groups, and is a summary of responses to four different questions regarding ‘who should be most responsible for ensuring’ food access, availability, affordability and quality.6

Figure 22: Food Security responsibility

6 The graph shows who groups awarded the score of five (most responsible) to each time they ranked the players for the four aspects of food security


The majority of groups thought the Government should be the most responsible, with 78% of the groups awarding the Government with a score of five. The Figure also highlights how people and communities were regarded as the least responsible for ensuring food security. Farmers and producers were regarded as being the next most responsible, followed closely by retailers and then processors. People and communities were assigned least responsibility, although as demonstrated in the discussion which follows, this overall result disguises the difficulties which project participants had in trying to reach consensus on these rankings, and notably, the ambiguity they felt about their own role within the food system. It is important to note that all of the Figures presented in this discussion are summaries of many hours’ worth of project participant discussions and whilst they do represent the general tenor of conversations, they are not statistically rigorous and belie the difficulties which project participants had in trying to agree the rankings. In some discussions, participants were unable to differentiate responsibilities between different actors, and so would assign them equal responsibility. Also, some groups did not achieve consensus on their rankings. The true value of the exercise lies in the insight which it has generated regarding consumers’ understanding of the complexities of the food system, and the discussion which follows tries to illustrate the nature of the debates which the activity provoked.

Whilst the results from the Roles and Responsibilities activity were fairly consistent across the different workshops, it was only groups from within workshops with higher-income participants that ‘people and communities’ were ever identified as being ‘most responsible’ (for affordability). Similarly, whilst the government were ranked relatively more responsible for many aspects of food security across the groups within workshops, it was only a small number of groups within workshops with higher-income participants that the government was ever ranked as ‘least responsible’ (for quality and affordability). Overall, the results from the activity suggest that across different income groups and Defra segmentation groups, consumer views on which actors in the food system should be responsible for ensuring food security are consistent and no significant divergences were apparent.

By disaggregating the results, as in Figure 23, it is possible to demonstrate how project participants differentiated responsibilities for the different aspects of food security.

Figure 23: Responsibilities for differing aspects of food

Figure 23 shows that in terms of food access, availability and affordability, the government was assigned most responsibility, by quite a margin. Findings suggest that there are a number of key reasons why participants provided these results. Firstly, it was argued that government is responsible for the national and local infrastructure which enables provision of roads and retail outlets for the


transport and sale of food. So, through planning laws, and the implementation of those laws by local authorities, government was the actor responsible for shaping the food retail landscape through decisions about the construction and location of out-of-town supermarkets, as well as town centre shops and takeaways, and of course the transport infrastructure needed to move food around. Some participants argued that as well as shaping planning laws, the government was also responsible for legislation around competition which has enabled large supermarkets to grow and prosper, often at the expense of small High Street retailers and village shops. Several respondents described this as the ‘free market’ approach to regulating the food retail sector and recognized that this approach was largely responsible for ensuring affordable food prices. The second part of the rationale for assigning government the most responsibility for food access was really a ‘moral responsibility’ to ensure that the population has access to food, particularly in times of crisis. Government was regarded as the only actor capable of shouldering such moral responsibility because the other players in the food system, notably supermarkets, were motivated by profit, and not by any sense of ‘care’ for the citizens. An important role for government, therefore, was to temper market forces and ensure some degree of ‘social responsibility’:

“I’m a very strong believer in that the market forces on the one hand but then there has to be a degree of kind of social responsibility tempering the degrees to which that should be allowed to impact. So there needs to be some safety net legislate intervention that prevents against the excesses but then at the end of the day it’s about free market forces.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“I think the Government, for all of it I think the Government should be the most important person because then there’s one person looking after the whole chain” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

So to summarize, the government was thus invested with legislative and moral responsibility to care for the population, and this rationale underpinned the overall positioning of government as the actor most responsible for ensuring food security. Findings suggest that a third rationale for giving government this level of responsibility was due to the fact that it was perceived to play an oversight role: designing food-related legislation (including regulations around labelling) and ensuring compliance and more generally, having the capacity to oversee the food system in its entirety. (see Box 23).


The general agreement was that it was up to government to ensure that food was available: essentially to play a co-ordinating and oversight role, either through regulations to ensure national food production, or ensuring the UK is able to import food, particularly in a time of crisis.

In terms of the other actors, farmers, producers and processors were accorded a high level of responsibility for food availability and quality, because project participants recognized that without farmers, no food would be produced in the first place and that farmers, producers and processors were able to ensure quality through the production process, this is reflected in Box 24.


Box 23: Government legislation

“One of the things that the Government needs to do through their agencies is to make people believe that what they are buying is what they are actually buying – so you can buy a free-range chicken for example, with a label and everything that says it had a happy life and everything but what has happened is that it has been reared in a cage and for the last two weeks of its life it’s allowed to run round a field and that is deemed to be an ‘organic’ chicken. In the same way that labels say ‘corn-fed’ - last two weeks of its life it can be fed corn for 24 hours a day – and that’s corn fed – well it’s corn fed for the last two weeks of its life but it’s been fed all sorts – absolutely all sorts prior to those last 2 weeks of its life. That sort of integrity leads into food security…you need to have confidence in what you’re buying… It’s the branding – the integrity of what is there. That’s what we look to Government bodies for - to ensure what we think is happening is actually happening.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Facilitator: So on that labelling issue then, do you think the Government should be stepping in to make the labels clearer or should it be retailers? It should be the GovernmentThey’re the ones taking the money for what they should be doing, telling them what to doThey’ve said we are responsible for this, vote for us and we will be responsible for all this stuff, then when you ask them to do something...”no it’ the retailers” “no, it’s the processors” But no it’s not, it’s the Government”(Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“There should be one system and the Government should say “this is it” in this country. If you want to sell food in this country, that’s what you do.” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“They’ve all got their own standards on how they rate food and it’s very complicated. You look at something and try to work out salt content and all different ways in doing it. It should be one system and everybody knows what it is” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

Like this business of putting British flags up into a lot of the food when none of the ingredients are from the UK there should be legislation to just stop doing that (Workshop 12)

“Yeah, I’d like them to go over the processors and make sure it’s fair and so then the consumer gets a fair cost. And quality is fairly done. That’s what I’m trying to say really.” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

Having said this, a common opinion was that farmers had little ‘power’ in the food chain, being largely constrained by retailer pricing tactics and government policy:

“I think it goes back to again the Government, the funding towards farmers … I don’t think it will be long before they go completely out of business … so I think it’s a constant struggle for them all the time. Their hands are tied really” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

Retailers were assigned most responsibility for ensuring food affordability (behind government). The reasoning behind this was that retailers are obviously the point of sale for most foodstuffs, and through their buying power, are able to ‘negotiate hard’ for cheap food prices for consumers. Despite this reasoning, participants displayed a degree of cynicism towards retailer motivations and commitment to public good, arguing that their actions were driven purely by the profit motive. For example,

“You’ve got to remember the mindset of the retailer. They are not coming from the point of wanting to do some public good. They are coming from the view of wanting to make profit and they will do it if it makes money for their organisation in one way or another.” (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

Some participants felt that the government should do more to control supermarket pricing and profit, as illustrated by the following comments. Others expressed trust in supermarkets to provide safe food, although as illustrated in the exchange below, this trust was perhaps not totally secure:

“Because we shop with our eyes, we think ‘Oh that looks nice’ and …we think that they are safe because we are buying them for supermarkets so we just think there is a level of safety in thereYehSo yeh, a certain amount of trust we put in the supermarkets to sell stuff that’s safeBecause, like you say you rate them…I mean, you have seen especially with Morrisons they have all these celebrities and that don’t they do all their advertising for them dragging trolleys through streams and -Fields


Box 24: Actor responsibility

“You look at a farmer with his dairy herd, they are just animals, but he knows every one of them by name, he looks after every single one of them, that’s what he does, same with his crops, he goes out every day and looks at his crops, he’s the one that knows what good beef is, he’s the one who knows what good crops are, he knows how to grow them because that’s what he does. The bloke in Whitehall can easily say you should have five ears of corn on your cob or whatever but if you can’t grow it you can’t grow it” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“Those are the ones making the food, they should … make sure the food that they are selling is not rubbish food basically” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa) “All the quality controls are within the processing.” (Workshop 7: ‘Rural households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Spondon)

“I think processors could do a better job to be honest – everything the process they put in too much salt which is bad for everybody.” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Fields and everything saying he has good meat and all that, so you do, that goes in, that stays in your headYeh, yeh, yehDo you tend to trust the supermarkets then and think that they are selling stuff that’s good quality?Well, sometimes yehSometimesMost of them do, yeh” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

“You look at food processors as well and it’s a massive business, and I don’t think they’re as bothered about the food security definition that was on the board ‘cos you look at HP...production overseas and a lot of local jobs got lost, Cadburys obviously been bought by Kraft and I think everybody’s expecting nothing good to be coming out of that locally. I remember when Nestle bought Rowntrees in York, I was living up there then, these big kind-of commercial, they’re like different entities aren’t they? They’re as powerful as, like small Governments some of them. I think retailers are sometimes blamed for some of the stuff that goes off because they’re the public face of it. Tesco is just one retailer but Heinz is supplying all of them...-They’re the stronger party. I think you’ve got to remember it’s a chain isn’t it? So everything is impacted on each other. So you can’t separate they’re almost all as important as each other.” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)


Box 25: Retailers and affordability

In one discussion around the role of retailers in ensuring the affordability of food the following exchange: Retailers only motive is profit, isn’t it I was going to say that’s just not enough All these companies they don’t care how healthy we are do they? They don’t give a damn No, it’s just making a profit isn’t it, so they have to pretend to be interested but they are not really are they. Not if it’s not affordable they won’t go there No that’s right, oh yes that’s a different thing then making it affordable so you buy them but they don’t care about our well being do they like the government is forced to, they don’t care […] They will they will make it affordable so you will shop there, yeah but they don’t care whether people have diabetes 2 because people are obese they don’t care about that do they like the government does, they just care about making a profit (Workshop 10: ‘Cautious participants’, Leamington Spa)

People and communities were assigned the least responsibility in all cases, mainly because respondents struggled to see how they could influence any of the processes involved.

“we (people) are at the bottom of the food chain” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

“People in communities should have more say but the people who are in government don’t listen” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

This is not to say that all participants were satisfied with this outcome as Box 26 shows. Some participants had reservations about giving the government such a prominent role and argued that consumers should accept some of the responsibility for sustaining the current food system, partly because of the shopping choices they make, and partly because it is people who ‘choose’ the government:


Box 26: Consumer acceptance of responsibility

“I think we are just too quick to blame the government for everything” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“In a funny way we [communities] are aren’t we [responsible for food affordability] because we elect our government, so in a funny way we are, but in a different way” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

People are too quick to think of Government as negative, aren’t they? With everything going on at the moment, without thinking well really they’ve been put there by us, and for the most part they are, you would hope, trying to do their best really. It’s in their interest to do the best for us. (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“The government can only do so much, somewhere along the line these people [processors, retailers] have to get involved” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“There is no reason why people can’t be knowledgeable about food…just because we are consumers we are not ignorant about food” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“We are all greedy. Forget about blaming someone else. If I said that you could get a chicken that was from Turkey for £2.50 for a whole chicken, or you are going to pay £5 in the shop which is from Farmer Brown down the road, what are you going to do? You are going to buy the cheaper chicken” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“we choose what we put in our mouths – we’ve let this happen” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Some respondents felt that consumers should play a more active role, taking more responsibility either by changing their shopping practices, or by acting collectively to change the system which is highlighted in Box 27:

A couple of groups introduced the idea of communities working for themselves, for example through co-operatives:

“Some people are doing that, some people are setting up food co-ops around the country. Similar to what you were talking about. Coming together as families, neighbourhood and communities and setting up their own cooperatives now” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“The only thing you could do as a community is that everybody get together and said right we’re not going to buy anything from the supermarket and we’ll all stick some money in a pot and buy it in bulk, and most people don’t have time” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)


Box 26 (continued): Consumer acceptance of responsibility

“I don’t know I just don’t know, now we’ve done that I feel weird that that’s all last on the line every time, that we’ve [i.e. people and communities] done nothingObviously we do play a part sometimes in the protests and stuff, you can make a difference, they always say that, you know, you can make a difference but looking at it really, we are just pulled in, like a cowboy Just to get through the day That’s it we’ve got no other choice there you see so - Just to put the food on the table - We don’t really have that much of an impact, they say we do, but we really don’t because like to get food you have to go to the store, we obviously can grow our own vegetables and stuff but you know who’s got the time and in this country it’s very hard to do that, because I know my sister she grows her on vegetables and like she had problems some times and then she calls me over and I don’t know what to do…”(Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

Box 27: Consumer responsibility

“The customer has a choice and nowhere more so than an economy like ours. How easy is it to go to a different shop or go online or just not go shopping?” (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“People’s influence, people’s demands on telling Government, telling society what it wants really. If you are bothered about something then you should make it clear. (Workshop 11: ‘Concerned consumers’, Tavistock)

“In a way, people and communities play a big part. If they shop in a local shop, they keep the money in the community…In a way, we play a very big role, it’s up to us to speak” (Workshop 8: ‘Rural Households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of professional occupation’, Borrowash)

In a number of workshop discussions around the potential for consumers to influence the food system and take more responsibility for food security, the conversation broadened out into debates about public apathy and the lack of public participation in politics and decision-making, Box 28 reflects such views:

In one rural workshop [5], a perceived difference between rural and urban communities was highlighted:


Box 28: Potential influence of consumers

“Trouble is, British people, we don’t know half our rights” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Actually a lot of people have become selfish. If people weren’t selfish and clubbed together..actually it would make a lot of difference” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“It’s not only the cost of petrol – you feel you are being ripped off on everything…and going back to the government, they know we’ll accept it. Other countries might have food shortages but if you try this in France, Italy, even Greece – they wouldn’t put up with it, they would shut the country down” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“We should be more like the French” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“We don’t get organised in this country, we think someone else is going to do it for us” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

Facilitator: do you think we should be growing more food?Respondent: That takes effort – we don’t like effort. People are lazy – it’s a Nanny state, we are told what to think (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End)

“People in the community should have more say but the people who are in government don’t listen to… I think we should take more responsibility for what we put into our bodies thoughNo body wants to be bothered to do it, we all sit back and let it happen …. oh, it’s not my problem let somebody else deal with it …. I think that’s the British attitude” (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

“ I think if I walked into Tescos and stood and said stand with me don’t pay this much for cheese I don’t think anyone would stand with me - I think everyone would just look at me as though I’d lost a few marbles” (Workshop 14: ‘Sideline supporters’, Coventry)

“I think we have power but we don’t use it in the right way. If we got together as a community and said “price of milk’s going up we’re not going to buy milk anymore” then something would be done about it. Because we don’t, we all live busy lives, we all cannot really be bothered, we just pay it, you look at it and say “oh it’s only 20p” but that 20p does matter. If everyone striked say over milk and eggs or whatever...and started growing your own vegetables, I think it would make a difference. And then... but it’s not going to happen is it?” (Workshop 16: ‘Honestly disengaged’, Birmingham)

“Yeh, if there was a problem us as a community…but if you had a bigger disaster and it was a city then as a community they are not going to get together, you know what they are like, they don’t even talk to you in the streets do they?” (Workshop 5: ‘Rural long term low income single households’, Winkleigh)

In discussion around people and communities taking more responsibility for food security, issues of power and control were also raised by participants, around the capacity of consumers to influence the system, and the capacity of the other actors to listen:

“People in the community should have more say but the people who are in government don’t listen ...”’ (Workshop 9: ‘Urban households that have experienced recent sudden drop in income due to loss of manual occupation’, Leamington Spa)

Workshop findings indicate that some project participants felt that they could take responsibility for food security through ‘buying power’ [e.g. “A group could go shopping together so that would save petrol” (Workshop 13: ‘Waste watchers’, Wood End) however, as demonstrated in Box 29, this was disputed in many discussions in relation to the real power consumers had.


Summary Points: Ensuring food security - Roles and Responsibilities in the Food System

Participants had high expectations of government and the findings suggest that they felt government should take a considerable amount of responsibility for ensuring food security. In terms of food access, availability and affordability, the government was assigned most responsibility compared to all other actors in the food system.

Government was seen as being most responsible for food security for a number of reasons: its responsibility for national and local retail and food distribution infrastructure; holding a moral responsibility for ensuring that the population has access to food; and being well placed to hold an oversight role over the whole food system.

Farmers, producers and processors were accorded a high level of responsibility for food availability and quality;

Retailers were assigned most responsibility for ensuring food affordability (behind the government);

The role of people and communities was discussed at length in many of the workshops. Whilst ‘people and communities’ were assigned least responsibility in most cases, there was much debate about their role/potential role.

Some participants felt that consumers should play a more active role in ensuring food security, but issues of power and control were raised around the capacity of consumers to influence the system.


Box 29: Consumer power

“I don’t think we have a great influence. You can sort of influence it by where you shop, but apart from that you can’tYou just have to take what’s there’ ‘I suppose if people didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t process it or make it would they, if they weren’t being sold?” (Workshop 2: ‘Urban long term low income households with dependent children’, Coventry)

the Government will do what it feels like anyway, they’re not going to even going to listen to anything you say (Workshop 15: ‘Stalled starters’, Birmingham)

“People in communities have some bearing on but I’d still like to see all of these other ones accountable in terms of law and not just by kind of letting them do their own thing, I think that’s why I put them – we’ve said government first is because I think that retailers should be held a bit more accountable than they are when that hike the prices up and they have so much power I think they have to be accountable now.” (Workshop 12: ‘Positive greens’, Coventry)

“Yeah, but sometimes it’s like Hobson’s Choice isn’t it? Like you can either have lamb or you can have lamb. Or you can have beef because that’s all we’ve got. As long as they’re putting stuff on the shelves and people are buying it, people are not really dictating what they’re buying. It’s the retailers saying “that’s what’s available”. (Workshop 3: ‘Urban long term low income single households’, Coventry)

Part 3: Conclusions

The term ‘food security’ had very little resonance with the majority of research participants, from both the quantitative and the qualitative phases. In the on-line survey, 70% of respondents had no recollection of the term being discussed in the media. When invited to comment on what the term might mean, 66% of respondents did not provide an answer. Similarly, in the qualitative phase of the research, very few workshop participants had ever heard the term used before. This is not to suggest that respondents are entirely ignorant of the problems facing the food system, or that they do not understand and/or experience the component parts of Defra’s concept of food security.

As indicated in earlier sections of this report, participants in our research demonstrated a very detailed knowledge of food prices and food availability, and discussed their strategies for coping with rising food prices at length. Not surprisingly, respondents’ knowledge is constructed primarily in terms of their role as food shoppers: they relate to the food system as consumers, and as such, are adept at negotiating the pricing strategies of supermarkets. They demonstrated less awareness of aspects of food production, although rural respondents were noticeably more likely to discuss the activities of farmers and farming policy in their considerations of food security. In response to questions posed during workshops, participants also reflected at some length on the extent to which food security can be said to exist in the UK, and the roles and responsibilities of different actors within the food system in terms of promoting different aspects of food security.

Key Findings: Access and Availability

In discussions around food access and availability, participants displayed knowledge about the food system, its vulnerabilities and the potential consequences;

When asked about things that might affect food availability, participants highlighted two broad issues:

1. Environmental problems – the volcanic eruption in Iceland; extreme weather and experiences of snowfall in the winter of 2009/10; animal disease; however, climate change was only referred to explicitly in three of the workshops.

2. Political, economic and commercial factors – wars disrupting food supplies and global trade; trading policies; high fuel prices and associated strikes and shortages; global food shortages driving up food prices.

When asked about things that might affect the accessibility of food, participants tended to refer to household or local-level issues:

1. Personal injury, ill-health, problems with personal transport, or extreme weather;2. Income was recognised as a key determinant of a household’s ability to access

food. The findings clearly show that very few participants envisaged a scenario where food

would not be physically available or accessible ‘somehow’ or that any obstacles would not be merely temporary.

Key findings: Food price rises: consumer perceptions and responses

Participants of all income brackets displayed a very detailed knowledge of food prices, the costs of individual items, how they have fluctuated, and differentials according to food stores.

The overwhelming majority of participants had noticed prices rising in recent years, particularly for bread, meat, fruit and vegetables and dairy (particularly cheese).

In relation to consumer understandings of recent price rises, a number of key reasons were identified by participants:

Impact of the economic crisis and recession; Other economic problems such as inflation, financial speculation, profiteering and

greed; Increased costs throughout the whole food system (packaging, quality control, costs

of raw ingredients); Global problems such as growing demand and crop shortages; Government policies (notably the Common Agricultural Policy)


Cost added through importing goods; The role of supermarkets in driving up prices

Participants reported changing shopping and cooking behaviours in response to the food price rises, including:

Trying to cut down on meat consumption; Searching for food ‘bargains’; Swapping to cheaper brands; Changing supermarket and shopping from a discount supermarket chain; Cooking more meals from scratch; Wasting less food; Freezing food and cooking in bulk

In discussions around future food price rises, many participants found it difficult to put a price on when food would become too expensive and some found it difficult to envisage how they would respond to future food price rises.

When participants were asked whether fluctuating or stable prices were preferable, there was no consensus across the workshops – some felt that fluctuating prices would enable them to buy more expensive foods when they dipped in price and others felt that stable prices might mean that prices were consistently high, which would not be desirable, particularly when it came to healthy foods.

Key findings: Consumer understandings of the term ‘food security’

The vast majority of participants had never heard of the term ‘food security’ (only two people had – total number of workshop participants was 122);

The dominant response when prompted to consider what it might mean, was to cite issues of food safety. The origin of food and clear food labelling were seen as important indicators of food safety;

Whilst discussions around labelling revealed a strong sense of confusion and distrust of food labels, there was also much critical discussion around ‘best before’ and ‘use by dates’ and how these could be unhelpful or overcautious. The research suggests that where links were made between labelling and food security (as food safety), there were concerned about being able to trust the legitimacy and genuineness of the food;

Many workshop participants also talked about food security in relation to ensuring and supply of food to feed the population this was referred to at various geographical scales including the global, national, local or household.

When asked about whether food security had been achieved in the UK, the overall sense was that food security had been partially achieved in so far as food was widely available and accessible, however the affordability of food in the UK was questioned in all of the workshops.

Key findings: Ensuring food security: Roles and Responsibilities in the Food System

Participants had high expectations of government and the findings suggest that they felt government should take a considerable amount of responsibility for ensuring food security. In terms of food access, availability and affordability, the government was assigned most responsibility compared to all other actors in the food system.

Government was seen as being most responsible for food security for a number of reasons: its responsibility for national and local retail and food distribution infrastructure; holding a moral responsibility for ensuring that the population has access to food; and being well placed to hold an oversight role over the whole food system.

Farmers, producers and processors were accorded a high level of responsibility for food availability and quality;


Retailers were assigned most responsibility for ensuring food affordability (behind the government);

The role of people and communities was discussed at length in many of the workshops. Whilst ‘people and communities’ were assigned least responsibility in most cases, there was much debate about their role/potential role.

Some participants felt that consumers should play a more active role in ensuring food security, but issues of power and control were raised around the capacity of consumers to influence the system.

References

Braunsberger, K., Wybenga, H. and Gates, R., 2007. A comparison of reliability between telephone and web-based surveys, Journal of Business Research, 60, 758–764.

Defra, 2008. A framework for pro-environmental behaviours. Report January 2008. Available from: http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/social/behaviour/documents/behavioursjan08-report.pdf (Accessed 20th August 2009).

DFID/Defra (2010) Policy Narrative on Global Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture.

Maxwell, S. 1996. Food Security: a post-modern perspective. Food Policy, 21, 2, 155-170.


Documents

Phase 2 - Defra, UKrandd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=FO0414(… · Web viewThe sample for the study ... 62% of respondents mentioned reductions in clothes ... Hundreds of