How Rural Restaurants Can Help the UK’s Food Security Problem

Food security, put simply, is the state of having reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. While the UK benefits from a successful agricultural industry, many domestic and international factors affect food production and prices for consumers. This became evident during the world food price spike of 2008.

A successful agricultural industry gives the perception that food security isn’t at risk in the UK. But the country is only around 58 percent self-sufficient and is reliant on imports from countries all over the world. This has caused a trade deficit of £24 billion in food.

This fact is magnified by the uncertainty of Brexit in the UK, with a no-deal agreement bad for security and bad for business. The recent pandemic has also made it harder to import foods from global locations, and food that is shipped over is taking longer in transit. 

Lockdown restrictions have also left farming and food production in a situation where it needs to bounce back from the crisis…