Could COVID-19 fix problems in the food supply chain and even solve Brexit?
“Fresh fish coming in” an email from Pesky Fish informed me at 7am on Monday morning. Whilst we are all used to a daily onslaught of spam pushing us everything from fashion to razor blades, this felt slightly different. Pesky Fish are selling the catch from day fishing boats around the West Country. They are one of a number of innovative food businesses that, over recent weeks have pivoted from supplying restaurants to the general public. They have had heaps of publicity from all corners of the food world and, as a result, by the time I log in at 11am, the turbot, line caught sea bass, mackerel, brill and plaice are already out of stock. Late comers like me will have to make do with pollock or some live lobsters.
The gathering of food and drink, which for much of human existence only needed to compete with procreation for our undivided attention has, over the last century, dwindled in importance to become a rather banal activity requiring little thought, imagination or forward planning. However recent lockdown measures - through a combination of over stretched conventional supply networks, a decimation of the hospitality sector and the removal of almost all other distractions - have re-elevated the task, giving us an opportunity to rethink the mechanics of how we feed ourselves.
In the UK, over 80% of all of our grocery shopping is done via the six largest supermarket groups: Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrisons, Aldi and Co-op.
In the UK, over 80% of all of our grocery shopping is done via the six largest supermarket groups: Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrisons, Aldi and Co-op. What unites all of these is their effort to supply everything a household could possibly need under one roof. The only disruption to this turgid sector in recent years has come from cost slashing European rivals, Lidl and Aldi.
Self-service supermarkets sprang to life in the early 1950s just after the second world war, an event that the media cannot tire of drawing dubious parallels with. When they first opened, people were alarmed by the lack of personal interaction they had with the suppliers of food, however they soon became symbols of a new modernity and freedom of choice. Any sceptics were quickly converted by lower prices and convenience.
Supermarket groups went on to become the dominant force in the food supply chain, squeezing producers of agricultural products as they competed aggressively with one another on price. Before supermarket price wars, it was commonplace to have your milk delivered each day direct from the farm by an electric milk float in glass bottles that would get collected and reused - an idea that couldn't seem more in line with the current zeitgeist and is now back on the rise. Supermarkets, for a time, however killed the milkman by selling milk and other dairy products at prices often below what they bought milk from at the farm on the basis that if people came for cheap milk they would fill a basket with other, higher margin goods.
As the power of supermarkets increased, so did the prevalence of “own brand” products. Now, everything from olive oil, soy sauce, beer, meat, fish and pasta can be bought under one homogenised brand. This has caused us to treat many food products as commodities that can only be distinguished from one another on price.
The effects of COVID-19 have meant however that supermarkets are losing their grip on the battle for convenience.
The effects of COVID-19 have meant however that supermarkets are losing their grip on the battle for convenience. The big grocers experienced a rush in demand when lockdown measures were enforced but were quickly overwhelmed. In store queues have become standard and essentials like flour, pasta and cooking oils remain hard to find. Even now weeks into lockdown it is almost impossible to secure a delivery slot with any of the major players.
With the lazy convenience of a one stop supermarket trip removed, people have started looking elsewhere to stock their larders. Those who have taken time to do so have found a whole range of options that are not just providing us with better quality food, but a better approach to food shopping. Breaking up the market has also meant that on the whole, independent suppliers have been able to keep up with demand.
Take tomatoes as an example. Waitrose sells “Essential” cherry tomatoes at £1.50 for a 500g pack. They are grown in Spain and year-round they look and taste the same: slightly jaundice yellow, hard and almost completely tasteless. That is because they are picked whilst still green and allowed to ripen in refrigerated transport on the long, overland trip to our supermarket shelves.
The Tomato Stall has been growing tomatoes on the Isle of White since 2007, supplying top chefs, farmers markets and a few high end food stores. The tomatoes are allowed to ripen on the vine allowing the maximum amount of flavour to develop. It doesn't make sense to send a single 500g pack of tomatoes, so their tomatoes come in 3kg boxes. At £20, that feels like more than you would comfortably spend on tomatoes in a single hit (although pound for pound it is not so different to the higher end Waitrose offering) and certainly more than you would ever need.
Tomatoes from The Tomato Stall arrive in the post
But say you take the plunge, allured by the prospect of a beautiful assortment of multicoloured heritage tomatoes and memories of the perfect Caprese salad during a trip to the Amalfi coast. Your whole approach to meal planning for the foreseeable future has already altered. With this bulk supply of a fantastic ingredient, you will start planning what to eat around what you have, as opposed to what you want, inspired by Instagram trawling or a Sunday newspaper supplement.
The success of companies like the Tomato Stall and Pesky Fish in reaching new retail customers in recent weeks has, in part, been driven by the chefs they used to supply.
The success of companies like the Tomato Stall and Pesky Fish in reaching new retail customers in recent weeks has, in part, been driven by the chefs they used to supply. Not wanting to see their favorite suppliers go under, restaurateurs have become trusted promoters of their favorite ingredients. The Virtual Food Festival has been harnessing the power of celebrity chefs including Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and Jose Pizaro to connect suppliers directly with retail customers through Instagram Live cooking demonstrations. Restaurants including the River Cafe, Brat and the Quality Chop House have also been delivering curated grocery boxes of ingredients from the people that usually supply their professional kitchens.
It could be a telling sign of things to come that Sunday Times chief restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin has pivoted her weekly column to interviewing chefs whilst being taught to cook by them via Zoom. With restaurants likely to be one of the last places where lockdown measures are lifted, buying a handpicked selection of top ingredients from your favorite chef then being guided through their preparation from the comfort of your own home could be the best alternative to eating out we will see for some time.
And it's not just food that is experiencing change as a result of restaurant closures. Some of Europe’s best wines come from small producers who, due to more predictable demand and the need for knowledgeable, hands-on sellers, only supply the restaurant trade. Without that demand, they are looking elsewhere for customers and offering generous discounts in the process. With a bit of research and some forward planning, you can now stock up your home reserves with top quality artisan wines bought direct from the producer for as little as £10 a bottle, as opposed to popping to the nearest convenience store for a spontaneous bottle of headache-inducing plonk.
Wines from Potentino in Tuscany are being sold at large discounts
This new shopping format is never going to be able to compete with supermarkets directly on price but it could help to save money on groceries by focusing meal planning on fewer but better ingredients and ensuring that less goes to waste. In any case, our spending on food as a proportion of income has been in steady decline for years. The last few weeks have forced us to strip our lives back to the bare essentials causing many people to discover a new found appreciation for food, not just as a source of sustenance and enjoyment but also as a relaxing pastime.
Removing the cost cutting middlemen by going direct to the source is also a step on the path towards redistributing the balance of power in our food supply chain, creating a fairer system for struggling farmers. Tesco’s plan to pay out £635m in dividends to shareholders at the end of this year, in part a result of their increased fortunes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A more thoughtful approach to how we gather food could instead see that money going directly into the hands of the people who feed us. Breaking up supermarket dominance in this way would bring much needed wealth to rural communities as well as opening a direct line of communication between producers and the end users of food. This could be one route to healing some of the social and economic divisions that have fractured the country in recent years.