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IS THE BRITISH FOOD RENAISSANCE OVER?

The bad news washes over us every day: a ￡780 drop in disposable incomes this year and next, the average cost of a trolley of food up 4.7 per cent from March to April, sales of organic food in supermarkets down by almost 6 per cent in 2010.   And so it goes on, evidence that the answer to the question might be a pretty walloping, Yes.    But  there’s evidence too that  quality food has embedded itself in the UK economy and in our lives, so will it so easily shrink to become just another little luxury for that top 1 % of the population who are thriving in these tough times?   

The recent 4th Real Food Festival at Olympia in London seemed like a good place to gather our own data–400 stallholders selling what the organisers called real food, from all over the country.   Would it be a requiem or something a bit cheerier?   One of the first people I talked to was Jonathan Burrough from Peradon Farm in Devon.  He and his wife sell organic meat direct.  They set up in January ’09 and have built up from a turnover of ￡400 a month to ￡10,000. “People tell us, ‘it’s not like it was’, but we don’t know how it was–we’ve just managed to grow and grow and grow. The disposable pound isn’t what it was but people like quality. ”  Geoff Sayer of the Well Hung Meat Company, also in Devon but longer established,  had a similar story of steady growth based on that taste for quality–something, he said,  his customers are willing to make a priority–  spending less on cars and holidays, more on food.

The School of  Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire which had a big stall at the festival, was set up  in the immediate wake of the recession to be the training engine for the quallity food movement. Like Peradon Farm they’re thriving.   Riverford Farm, the big beast in the veg box business, has seen its sales rise 5 % this year after two years of decline. Founder Guy Watson says the recession has cleared out the weak players:   “ the ones who are doing welll are those with good products not trendy foods…….Organic isn’t enough, it has to taste good and be well priced.” 

There were very few tales of woe so what does it all mean?   At the end of that day at the festival I chaired a debate with a mixed audience of public and stallholders.    End of the Renaissance?  we asked a panel made up of market researcher Giles Quick from Kantar Worldpanel who’s been following retail food sales for 25 years;  businessman and organic farmer William Kendall;  supermarket adviser and fruit farmer Teresa Wickham;  and Andrew Opie of the supermarket funded British Retail Consortium.   Have a listen to what they said–and tell us what you think.