A couple of summers ago, my sister-in-law married her husband in France, where his family is from.
A couple of days before the wedding, we sat in his parent’s house and discussed the French relationship with food. His entire family insisted the French placed a much higher value on the food they eat than the Brits, pointing to the continued and widespread presence of boulangeries, boucheries and patisseries on their high streets.
At the time, my general stubbornness and a kernel of patriotism meant I challenged and resisted such a presumption. However, increasingly, I have come to accept this is likely true.
Not only on French high streets, but in their supermarkets, local products are both rife and prominent. During that holiday, my kids’ breakfasts were covered in Breton milk and beside the hob at home remains a large jar of Norman salt.
These were not from farmers’ markets or artisanal delis, but national retailers with products local to their stores. Such was my obsession with the French commitment to regional pride and identity, I even began to recognise the regional department logos on every vehicle’s licence registration plate.
Farmers Weekly award
In October, we at North Farm Livestock were proud to win the Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year award. After the winners were announced, we were invited back onto the stage for a group photo. I stood alongside my cousin, Matthew, and Mark Gorton of Traditional Norfolk Poultry, who won Poultry Farmer of the Year.
“Three for Norfolk!” said Mark, enthusiastically wielding the dinner-plate-sized award. Further along the stage stood James Chapman, winner of both Arable Farmer of the Year and the overall Farmer of the Year prize, whose farm is out towards the east coast. Mark’s comment kept replaying in my head on the train home the following day. Despite this success, I wondered if anyone at home, let alone nationally, really recognises Norfolk as a leading producer of food for the nation.
Did people sitting down to their roast dinners a couple of days after these awards recognise how much of the food on their plate could have been grown here? Probably not. This is the complete antithesis of what I saw in France.
Instead, we remain a net importer of pigmeat and AHDB has recently forecast declining production across all major UK livestock sectors. A report by the Co-op earlier this year highlighted a 15% year-on-year increase in imported meat on supermarket shelves, with a 50% rise in Thai chicken imports in 2025.
It is staggering that the British pig sector operates in constant fear of attacks from activists who seek to undermine it when supermarket shelves are increasingly stocked with food produced to considerably lower standards.
The AHDB’s ‘British Pork, But Not As You Know it’ campaign promotes pork’s versatility and affordability. I would argue this distinguishes pork from other proteins, rather than British pork from imported products.
Though important in some ways to ‘showcase tasty, family-friendly meals that cost less that £6 to feed a family of four’, should we not be showing the public why it might cost more than £6 to do this?
Show the difference
At a recent dinner, someone suggested that we need to show the difference in UK production versus the methods used to produce some of the products imported onto our shelves. It is certainly true that we need to find a way to make people sit up and notice.
Events like Back British Farming Day feel like they can exist in an echo chamber without really cutting through beyond the sector.
I think it is time to reclaim the narrative. It is time to champion the regions where our food is produced and to be braver in challenging the public consciousness.
At the same dinner, lots of time was spent discussing the need for collaboration and cooperation in order to turn the tide. The challenges presented to us by activism, by government and by the farming landscape are not unique to any one business or farmer.
As a sector, and in our communities, perhaps we need to come together and figure out what the story is. If we don’t tell it ourselves, someone else will tell it for us.