Global food supply is a growing problem

Retailers and politicians are seeking ways to keep the global food crisis from hitting the UK

Food riots. Scores of panicked people protesting, burning effigies and chanting. Shops being ransacked, supplies running out as soon as they come in, and stricken communities stockpiling rice, bread and water for fear of going without. These have happened in Haiti and Egypt in recent months as the price of scarce food has soared.

But what if they happened on the streets of Bromley? Or Newcastle? Or Bath? As bizarre as this might seem, the prospect of UK food shortages has started to be taken seriously by food manufacturers and retailers.


The global food shortage has raced to the top of the political agenda in recent weeks due to a nasty combination of increasing demand, falling supply and ever-costlier production and selling prices. At the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) conference last week, Jacques Diouf, the FAO’s director-general, said that $30bn (