Britain’s food supply is increasingly threatened by climate breakdown, disease and cyber-attacks, yet the government has failed to prepare properly for serious disruption, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
The public spending watchdog said DEFRA, the department responsible for food security, had taken some steps to prepare for future shocks. But it hasn’t done enough to involve local authorities, communities or the businesses that physically move and store food.
Britain imports more than a third of its food, with most of those imports passing through just four ports: Dover, Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway. This extreme concentration leaves millions of people dependent on a handful of vulnerable transport hubs.
The problem isn’t international trade itself. It’s that food production and distribution are organised through a capitalist world market built around profit rather than human need. Supply chains have been stretched across continents and concentrated into as few facilities as possible because this cuts costs and raises returns. The same system that appears efficient under ordinary conditions becomes dangerously fragile during a crisis.
Climate breakdown is making those crises more frequent. Capitalism continues to burn fossil fuels, destroy ecosystems and exhaust agricultural land because individual companies are compelled to pursue short-term accumulation. The resulting disruption then threatens the food supply, while the cost is pushed on to workers who had no control over the decisions that created it.
Britain’s food supply chain came under pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic and following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Large supermarkets and other companies generally kept goods moving without extensive government assistance. Defra is nevertheless less confident that private businesses could withstand future shocks, particularly severe weather, without greater state intervention.
That uncertainty exposes a basic contradiction. Food distribution is largely controlled by private companies, but the consequences of failure are social. A supermarket, logistics firm or cold-storage operator holds spare capacity only when doing so makes commercial sense. Maintaining redundant warehouses, transport routes, energy supplies and emergency stocks may improve national resilience, but to an individual capitalist it often looks like an unnecessary expense.
During the pandemic, food companies said DEFRA communicated and worked with them effectively. That engagement has since declined, while businesses have had limited involvement in drawing up emergency plans. The NAO warned this could leave the government relying on proposals that wouldn’t work under real conditions.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Recent disruptions have shown the resilience of the UK’s food supply chain, but risks are increasing in likelihood and severity.
“DEFRA should learn from approaches taken in other countries, and strengthen preparedness for emergencies by testing plans with local government and industry.”
Government research has also found that people in Britain are less prepared for a major emergency than those in several other European countries. Experts have consequently advised households to stockpile long-life food.
For millions of working-class households, however, stockpiling isn’t a realistic answer. Families already struggling to afford the week’s shopping can’t simply purchase several weeks of food in advance. Many tenants also lack the storage space, while people dependent on electricity for cooking or refrigeration would remain vulnerable during an extended power cut.
The emphasis on household preparedness shifts responsibility downwards. The state leaves food infrastructure in private hands, permits companies to organise it around profitability and then tells individual families to prepare themselves when that system comes under strain. Wealthier households can buy reserves and absorb higher prices; poorer households face empty cupboards.
The government formally classifies food as one of 13 critical national infrastructure sectors. Yet cold-storage facilities and food transport hubs haven’t been given sufficient protection. Industry representatives have called for them to be added to the critical infrastructure list so their electricity supplies would be maintained during widespread outages.
The Cold Chain Federation, representing storage and logistics businesses, accused the government of “complacency” earlier this year and said potential disruption to the food system should become an “immediate national priority”.
Defra’s last national exercise simulating a catastrophic disruption to food supplies took place in 2023. Most supply-chain businesses weren’t included. Local resilience forums have also said they don’t know clearly what Defra would expect them to do during an emergency.
The NAO’s findings reveal more than administrative neglect. They show the irrationality of leaving an essential human need dependent on competing private interests, concentrated infrastructure and unstable global markets. Britain possesses the productive capacity, technical knowledge and labour needed to keep people fed. What it lacks is collective control over the system.
Under capitalism, food remains a commodity first and a human necessity second. Profits stay private during normal times; when the supply chain fails, hunger, shortages and soaring prices are imposed on society as a whole.
