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UK publishes latest food security report

The UK government releases its food security report 2024, detailing five core themes for bolstering and securing the future of the country’s food.

On 14 January 2025, the UK government’s food arm, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), published its UK Food Security Report 2024.

The report explores past, present, and future drivers and impacts of food security and aims to provide the most relevant and up-to-date understanding of food security in the UK.

Concerns about the UK’s self-sufficiency are prominent. According to DEFRA’s 2023 data, the country is 62% self-sufficient in food. Overall, self-sufficiency has remained stable over the past 10 years. However, it has recently declined in specific sectors, such as fresh vegetables, which is at the lowest level since records started almost 40 years ago, in 1988, when it stood at 53%.

Complex issues affecting the UK food supply chain

The report recognises that at the backdrop of the UK’s food and beverage industry in the past three years, 2021-2024, is the ongoing societal handling of and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, the UK navigated the response to Brexit, adjusting to a new relationship with the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area trade (EEA).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East have also further disrupted supply chains. Climate change also influences the food and agricultural landscape, leading to extreme weather conditions and additional food chain impacts at national and local levels.

Food security themes

The report identified five core themes that will strengthen the British food and beverage landscape and promote food security efforts in the UK.

Analysing statistical data before the report’s release, the UK’s food system continues to show stable food production growth despite geopolitical and climate events. However, the future of food security is at risk, with climate change, nature loss and water insecurity posing risks to the country’s access to food. Globally, weak productivity growth poses more obstacles to strengthening food availability. The world’s trading system has also remained stable.

However, the prevalence of undernourishment among the global population is rising. Numerous macro factors, including poverty, conflict, and climate change, have contributed to this increase, along with micro issues such as food distribution, growing commodity use and caloric efficiency. Between 2017 and 2023, the number of people undernourished worldwide increased from 541 million to 733 million.

2. Supply sources

The UK’s balance between food production and trade is largely stable. In 2023, the production-to-supply ratio was almost two-thirds (62%) for all foods and three-quarters for foods grown in the UK. This is slightly up from 2021’s figures, which were 61% and 74%.

Extreme weather conditions affect domestic food production and make navigating the landscape difficult. The UK relies extensively on global imports to meet consumer demand for fruit, vegetables, and seafood.

Looking ahead to the future of UK food production, the long-term decline in the UK’s natural capital is a potential problem for its production and, subsequently, availability of safe and sustainable food.

3. Supply chain resilience

Input costs for instrumental inputs in the food sector, such as energy and fertiliser, rose following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Currently, labour shortages remain in the agri-food sector.

In 2022, UK farms were required to pay £2 billion for fertiliser costs, up from £1.5 billion in 2021, before decreasing to £1.4 billion in 2023. Prices signalled a far more volatile cost level than those displayed in the decade to 2020. Electricity and gas prices spiked between 2014 and 2020, doubling for electricity and almost tripling in gas from the middle of 2022.

In 2021, the UK saw a steep drop in import volumes of feed, food, and drink to the UK. However, these imports have increased marginally in the three years since then. The UK continues to be the UK’s largest external supplier.

The resilience of the UK’s food system is under threat. Weaknesses and points of failure within the food supply chain present risks to the industry’s resilience. Food businesses have demonstrated their robust nature and ability to recover from industry shocks.

Yet, despite this ability to bounce back, investment in the food industry remains below the levels seen before the cost disruption in 2022. On average, the total quarterly investment climbed by 5.7% in 2023 compared to 2022. However, it was 21% lower than the 2021 figures.

4. Household food security

The latest report’s results show that while most UK households remain food-secure, there are fewer food-secure households. Food secure households declined from 92% in the financial year ending (FYE) 2020 to 90% in FYE 2023.

Since 2021, the UK has witnessed increasing inflation levels in food and non-alcoholic beverages. Inflation for food and non-alcoholic drinks peaked in March 2023, reaching 19.2%. Overall inflation peaked in October 2022 at 9.6%.

Data details that most consumers fail to meet governmental dietary recommendations, with consumers from lower-income groups less likely to meet recommendations than those from the highest-income groups.

Food insecurity rates differ depending on demographics, with notable variations in levels and experiences between different income groups. For example, in FYE 2023, 84% of households with disabled people were classified as food secure, whereas this number was 10% higher, at 94%, for households without disabled people.

According to laboratory reports – except for the COVID-19 pandemic period– the presence of pathogens that can cause foodborne gastrointestinal diseases remained relatively stable from 2019 to 2023. In addition, the proportional trends in foodborne disease outbreak surveillance data display these trends, too.

Business inspection data indicates an upward trend in food business hygiene compliance. However, there is currently a bottleneck in the inspection process, with more businesses than the UK would like to see still waiting on food inspections.