27-05-2025
Start planning ration packs with chickpeas for Russian attack on UK's food supply chain, experts warn
The Government has been urged to draw up plans for ration packs to cater for all diets in the event of a devastating cyberattack or a Russian military assault.
Experts warned that ministers had given little thought to how groups such as vegans or Muslims would be fed if Britain's 'vulnerable' food supply chain was knocked out.
Tim Lang, a professor of food policy at City St George's, University London, said that ration packs would need to offer comfort in such circumstances.
If people were 'in psychological shock they need to have things they are familiar and comfortable with', he told the Hay Festival, as reported by The Times.
'They have just experienced new things - explosions, energy outages - and you don't want people used to a halal diet to have to eat a non-halal diet for example or vegetarians and vegans to have to eat meat.
'It will be very different from 1940 and 1916 and we have not been planning for that.'
Prof. Lang pointed to how other countries, including Germany and Sweden, were already 'getting into the minutiae about different diets, different ethnicities'
He said the Government's scientific advisory committee on nutrition needed to start 'analysing British diets'.
The academic said he was continually telling the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 'to take food security and food shocks more seriously'.
'When I have looked at how much intelligence gathering is going on in the food system about shocks it is low. Not much,' he said.
'There are a range of potential shocks to the food industry… but there is this complacency. We just tend to assume food is there.'
He added it was 'crazy' that Britain with its 'good soil and capabilities' did not produce more of its own food and instead relied on imports.
Prof. Lang highlighted the recent cyberattacks that hit Co-op and Marks & Spencer.
He suggested the impact would have been much worse if Tesco had been targeted as it 'sells nearly a third of all food'.
The academic said the UK's food industry operated on a 'just in time' strategy and needed to move to a 'just in case' approach.
'Britain feeds itself through nine companies who account for 94.5 per cent of food purchases, plus the catering sector,' he added.
'These companies all control long supply chains which have all been managed and increasingly integrated to get rid of storage.'
Sir David Omand, the former director of GCHQ, echoed the warning that Britain's 'complex' food supply systems had made the country 'more vulnerable'.
He said: 'My worry about a lot of these resilience things is that we are rather complacent.
'We will get the wake-up call when suddenly you turn on the switch and the lights don't come on because of some cyberattack or some Russian attack or whatever it might be.'
A DEFRA spokesman said: 'Our cross-Government food strategy will make sure our food system can continue to feed the nation, realise its potential for economic growth, protect the planet, and nourish individuals, now and in the future.
'We cannot do this alone, which is why we are working with those across the food sector, utilising their expertise, to transform the industry for good.'
