Covid and Food

Early in the pandemic, supermarket shelves in the West were stripped of produce in a wave of panic buying. But despite the unprecedented economic impact of covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns, global food supply chains have proved resilient, with most goods available to Western consumers at near pre-pandemic prices. However, pre-existing inequalities profoundly affected people’s capacity to purchase food during the crisis, with the number of households in Britain facing food insecurity rising to 14% and food bank use increasing rapidly. A celebrity footballer had to step in to secure free school meals for children in need. How well did society manage to ensure the provision of adequate sustenance for all? What lessons can we learn going forward? For those able to secure adequate supplies, how did patterns of food consumption alter? Did we get more or less unhealthy under lockdowns? Was there more cooking at home or more unhealthy snacking? How did patterns of food consumption affect family life? Was big business the winner, or did local independents and farm shops benefit? Many got used to home deliveries of food under lockdown – fuelling the gig economy or opening the door to new possibilities? Will these changes be temporary or permanent?

On April 8th 2021 the Pandemic Perspectives group debated these issues, guided by Lauren Chenarides’ article in the journal Agribusiness, ‘Food consumption behaviour during the Covid-19 Pandemic‘; The Food Standards Agency’s comprehensive report on the UK public’s experiences and attitudes toward food during the pandemic; Joanna Wilson’s Imperial College report, ‘Food and Coronavirus: Examining the pandemic’s influence on diet‘; journal Appetite full issue (23 articles) on the ‘Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food intake, appetite and weight status‘; The Trussell Trust’s article, ‘New Report Reveals how Coronavirus has affected Food Bank use‘ and Louise Johnson’s article in The Globe and Mail (Canada), ‘The science behind why everyone is suddenly baking bread’.

Liam Knight opened the debate by citing what he saw as the key statistic from the Food Standard Agency’s report; that 14% of families reported experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic, up from 11% pre-pandemic. He argued, persuasively, that the shocking statistic was not the increase under Covid, but that 11% of the populous of a wealthy country should be facing food shortages as a matter of routine. He hoped that the pandemic had made this obscene injustice visible, but expressed concern that it had required the intervention of a celebrity footballer to bring it to public attention. Others echoed his view. Cristopher Griffin noted other statistics from the FSA report; that 63% of respondents supported the view that ‘it is the government’s responsibility to make sure no-one goes
hungry’ and that 69% of respondents supported children getting free school meals during the holiday during the pandemic, and 59% that this should continue when the pandemic was over. He hoped that this might constitute a large enough constituency to bring pressure for change. He was not unduly optimistic however, noting that the scandalous rise in people using food banks had been brought to public attention before, notably by Ken Loach’s film, ‘I Daniel Blake’, but was soon forgotten. Citing his own experience of working in a food bank, he expressed his astonishment that a form of ‘Victorian philanthropy’ was being applied in the 21st century, which despite its admirable work, was clearly not a solution to the problem. Phil Cohen noted that in the Oxford food bank he had worked in, support was provided by Morrison’s supermarket and local church networks, but also via the local authority through the creation of council led ‘food-hubs’. He too, however, was appalled that the provision of food was being left to voluntarism. Alastair Gardner reminded the group of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ idea of 2010, which although couched as a means of generating an active citizenship, was more easily interpreted as a means of the state passing its responsibilities to the voluntary sector. David Christie noted that the provision of services to homeless people (his research area) had largely been left to the faith-based voluntary sector even after the creation of the post-war welfare state, with no consistent state involvement until the 1990s. He argued that the neglect of groups deemed ‘marginal’ had a long pedigree. He was, however, hopeful that perhaps the intervention by Marcus Rashford would have long-lasting consequences, and suggested that the ‘return of the state’ prompted by the pandemic would be sustained in its aftermath. Richard Kendall too, was hopeful that the ‘communist experiment’ of governance under Covid-19 would be sustained in some form, and combined with the new familiarity of home food delivery, might presage a national ‘meals-on wheels’ service. Griffin picked up on this theme, proposing a National Food Service (NFS), equivalent to the NHS. He couldn’t quite expunge his cynicism however, noting that although it was possible that an egalitarian service run by Nye Bevin’s great-great granddaughter might emerge, it was more likely that a privatised service, outsourced to a Tory party funder paying himself a huge salary as CEO, would be the more likely outcome. Cohen reminded the group, that despite its low costs, the historic meals-on-wheels service had been defunded by a previous Conservative administration. Carmen Torres explained that in the US, the state’s intervention in food poverty had been facilitated by direct payments in the form of substantial ‘stimulus cheques’, enabling people to make their own choices about expenditure. This had been backed up, she explained, by a ‘children’s register’ administered through the public school system that had delivered substantial boxes of meals for breakfast and lunch to families who had lost their jobs. Food bank use in the US also increased by 55%, delivering 6 billion meals in 2020. She also noted that endemic racial inequality and injustice in the US had meant that BAME groups had suffered disproportionately.

The group moved on to discuss the question of physical health under covid. Christie argued that, like many aspects of the pandemic’s impact, people’s health was bounded by questions of inequality and class. He suggested that whilst for middle-class, white-collar furloughed workers, lockdown had left more disposable income and more time to prepare meals from fresh ingredients. Hence the ‘baking of sourdough bread’ phenomena. He pointed out that this differential impact seemed born out in the FSA statistics, where 30% reported eating more healthily and another 30% snacking more. Griffin concurred, noting that the restrictions preventing the use of fresh food at food banks meant that most of the fare provided was unhealthy. Cohen echoed this from his own experience, but pointed out that attempts had been made to provide healthier food. Torres noted this was similar in the US, where free food boxes included a lot of unhealthy, processed foods. Knight noted that, although quickly forgotten, the ‘free school meals’ provided during the pandemic had often been woefully inadequate and although in principle valued at £25/week had often consisted of little more than tiny cereal boxes, a single piece of fruit and a solitary potato. Christie argued that the American model of direct payments of cash was a better method, by giving choice to recipients on their purchases could choose healthier options. Kendall was less sure, noting that the cheapest food was often the least healthy. He also argued that unlike the provision under rationing in WW2 no sense of healthy, balanced diet had been prioritised and promoted during the current crisis. Cohen widened the debate, noting problems the state had encountered in trying to promote healthy eating. He bemoaned the use of celebrity endorsement (citing Jamie Oliver’s healthy school meals campaign of 2005) but argued that this had become necessary due to the long-term erosion of trust in government. He argued that the increasing centralisation of governance had undermined the power and more trusted voice of local administrations, and that messages delivered as instruction rather than advice were likely to be unsuccessful. He argued that you would have to go back to the ‘friendly chats’ of the ‘radio doctor’, Charles Hill, in the 1950s to find an effective state-led model. Gardner noted that the burden of providing healthier meals cooked from raw ingredients inevitably fell on the unpaid and unrecognised labour of women.

Christie raised the issue of the surprising resilience of global food chains, noting that after the initial spate of panic buying, supermarket shelves in the West had remained fully stocked, with only brief fears of an ‘avocado shortage’ and although there had been inflation in the price of ketchup in the US, prices had remained broadly stable. He queried the impact on farmers and food suppliers dependent on the restaurant trade who would have had to pivot to supply supermarkets or to deliver directly to consumers and speculated on the long-term impact of these changes. Griffin recalled that supermarkets had attached signs in front of displays of certain foodstuffs outlining the maximum volume that could be purchased. He suggested this method had been effective in preventing hoarding, personally noticing only shortages of plain flour and, at Christmas, a Yorkshire pudding deficit. Torres suggested things had not gone so smoothly in the US, where after early ‘animalistic’ behaviour and food hoarding, restrictions had not been applied in smaller food outlets, where wealthy customers would over-tip to avoid limits and price-gouging had been commonplace. Gardner reminded the group that all was not well with global agribusiness before the pandemic hit, pointing out that the very genesis of Covid-19 was a product of global animal supply chains. Group member Will Gilead’s Ecologist article (on PP website) on this issue was noted. Kendall pointed out that such issues were habitually ignored or swept under the carpet, recalling the brief flurry of concern over conditions in slaughterhouses and a Leicestershire food processing plant that had quickly been forgotten. The ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme was recalled, to much scorn, with Knight pointing out that the scheme had cost the treasury £189 million which would have been better spent elsewhere. Only Christie defended the scheme, arguing that its flaw was as an agent of contagion, but that as a means of distributing income to small and medium-sized businesses it had merit. No one else agreed.

There was much more, join Pandemic Perspectives to have your say, or set up your own group…