Recent trends in UK food consumption

Peter Jackson1

SummaryThis paper summarises recent trends in UK food consumption, with reference to the wider European context and growing concerns about food security at the global scale. Focusing on the last 20 years, the review discusses changes in what and where we eat, questioning the evidence on which popular accounts of the decline of the ‘family meal’ are based. It shows how changes in food consumption within the home are related to changes in family and household composition. It challenges current assertions about the alleged deficit of cooking skills which often take a highly gendered and moralised position. The paper examines the rise of ‘convenience’ food and emphasises the diversity of this growing sector. It describes recent changes in food governance and regulation in the UK and concludes by analysing the ethical challenges which consumers face in relation to an increasingly globalised agri-food system, including the current and future imperative to reduce food waste.

The global context

The world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, putting unprecedented pressure on existing resources and posing critical questions in terms of environmental sustainability and future food security.2 The UK Government’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir John Beddington, referred to a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions that are combining to threaten future food security including climate change, population increase and the growing pressure on water 1 Peter Jackson is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. He has directed several research projects on food consumption funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Cultures of Consumption, 2003-7), the Leverhulme Trust (Changing Families, Changing Food, 2005-8), the European Research Council (Consumer Culture in an ‘Age of Anxiety’, 2009-12) and the ERA-Net sustainable food programme (Food, Convenience and Sustainability, 2014-17). Recent publications include Changing Families, Changing Food (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009), Food Words (Bloomsbury, 2013) and The Handbook of Food Research (Bloomsbury, 2013, co-edited with Anne Murcott and Warren Belasco). Thanks to Dr Polly Russell for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper.2 Food security is defined by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization as existing ‘when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’ (FAO, World Food Summit, 1996).

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and energy resources in the period following ‘peak oil’. These pressures were signalled by the rapid increase in agricultural commodity prices in 2007-8 which led the UN Secretary General to declare that the world is facing its worst food crisis in a generation. While food security has conventionally been seen as a ‘development discourse’, of most concern to those in the Global South, it is increasingly seen as a relevant issue for people in the Global North. Under pressure to encourage healthier diets and more sustainable modes of consumption, countries like the UK are facing a major increase in ‘over- consumption’ (with predictions of a rapid rise in the number of those diagnosed as clinically obese) while, at the same time, growing numbers face emergency food shortages or longer-term malnutrition.3

Key drivers

A recent paper on global food consumption trends (Kearney 2010) summarised the key drivers as changing incomes, urbanization levels, trade liberalization, the role of transnational food corporations, retail concentration, food marketing and changing consumer attitudes and behaviour. Retail concentration is particularly high in the UK, where around three-quarters of groceries are purchased from the ‘big four’ supermarkets (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: UK retail concentration

3 Recent Foresight reports predict that UK obesity levels, measured in terms of a Body Mass Index of >30kg/m², will rise to 40% by 2025 and to 60% by 2050 (Cabinet Office, 2010). Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that ‘Food banks struggle to feed hungry as demand rises’ (7 May 2013).

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source: Cabinet Office (2008), based on research by the Institute of Grocery Distribution

Kearney (2010) predicts significant increases in the consumption of organic foods (emphasising improved environmental standards and animal welfare), functional foods (which claim health benefits beyond their basic nutritional value) and genetically-modified foods (especially in countries like Brazil and China). Changing patterns of consumption in the ‘emerging economies’ are also likely to put further pressure on global food security as the rapid growth in the number of middle-class consumers in these countries leadto increased demand for meat and dairy products in what some have called a ‘nutrition transition’ (Popkin 1999, 2006).

Consumer anxieties about food

While food remains a source of pleasure for many consumers, it also gives rise to high levels of reported anxiety. Eurobarometer data, for example, reveal that almost 80% of European citizens are concerned about food safety and more than two-thirds are concerned about the quality and freshness of food. Concerns about food safety are higher in the UK than the European average, possibly reflecting the legacy of BSE (‘mad cow disease’), with less than two-thirds (59%) of UK respondents feeling that food is safer today than ten years ago (see Table 1). These high levels of reported anxiety do not always translate into practice even among those who have the resources to exercise a reasonable level of ‘consumer choice’. Food and eating practices are deeply embedded in people’s social and domestic routines such that they are often highly resistant to change. The gaps between consumer knowledge and behaviour, and between reported behaviour and actual practice, are notoriously difficult to overcome as has been realised by successive governments who have pursued a ‘behaviour change’ agenda.

Table 1: Consumer attitudes to food

EU UK% concerned about food safety 79 84% concerned about global food security 76 74% concerned about animal welfare 64 67% concerned about the quality and freshness of food 68 66% with confidence in national/EU food safety agencies 64 65% who feel that food is safer than ten years ago 42 59

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% concerned about geographical origin of food 65 52% concerned about avian influenza (‘bird flu’) 60 50% concerned about GM food 66 48% expressing confidence in supermarkets 36 46% concerned that food may damage their health 48 29

source: Eurobarometer (2010, 2012)

In terms of the step change in consumer behaviour that will be required to deliver a healthier and more sustainable food system, concerns have been expressed over the complexity and lack of clarity of current food labelling systems with a proliferation of use-by, display-until and best-before date labels as well as a multitude of labels indicating environmental and animal welfare standards such as Red Tractor and Certified Organic (cf. Milne 2012). More generally, a crisis of consumer confidence has been observed as consumers have lost trust in an increasingly globalized agri-food system (Kjaernes et al. 2007). The Curry Commission report on the future of British food and farming concluded that the present system was ‘dysfunctional’ as a result of the growing disconnection between the different actors involved along the supply chain (Policy Commission on the Future of Food and Farming 2002).

What and where we eat

According to data from DEFRA, there has been a long-term decline in the consumption of milk, fresh meat and potatoes over the period 1977-2007 (Cabinet Office 2008). A growth in positive attitudes towards ‘healthy eating’ does not seem to have been matched by actual spending patterns, where the purchase of fruit and vegetables has fallen from its peak in 2005-6. The fall in fruit and vegetable consumption has been highest among poorer households, reflecting the impact of the recent recession.4 In 2012, the average family spent 11.6% of its household budget on food, rising to 16.6% for those on the lowest incomes (DEFRA 2013). The downward trend in family expenditure on milk and cream, meat, fish, potatoes, bread and biscuits continues, with average consumption of whole milk falling from >1000ml/person/week in the 1990s to <500 ml/person/week in 2010. Changes in household expenditure on different types of food over the last twenty years are shown in Table 2.

4 ‘Fruit and vegetable consumption by poorer families falls by 30%, figures show’ (The Guardian, 22 January 2012).

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Table 2: UK household food purchases (average quantity per person per week)

1984 1994 2004 2011Milk and milk products (ml) 2526 2265 1996 1904Carcase meat (g) 348 250 229 204Non-carcase meat (g) 722 732 820 794Fish (g) 140 148 158 147Fat (g) 300 235 182 170Sugar and preserves (g) 381 224 134 126Fruit and vegetables (g) 3332 3284 3096 2986Bread (g) 935 820 695 621

source: DEFRA (2013)

In a recent article on ‘The British at Table’, The Economist (27 July 2013) concluded that ever since the 1970s, Britons have cut back drastically on green vegetables and have turned to ready meals, convenience meat products, pizza and salty snacks such as crisps in ever greater numbers. The declining consumption of certain vegetables such as cabbage and Brussels sprouts has been particularly rapid (with sprout consumption falling by more than four-fifths since 1974).

Eating outside the home has seen a continued increase in expenditure (despite consumers reporting that they have eaten out less in the last six months for financial reasons). According to the Food and You survey, for example, 75% of respondents reported that they had eaten out in the last seven days, compared to 69% in 2010 (FSA 2013), while expenditure on take-away food has risen by 11% since 2009 (DEFRA 2013).5 The Food and You survey also found that younger people were more likely to eat out than older people and that those on higher incomes and with higher levels of education were more likely to eat out than poorer households and those with lower education levels. This is consistent with earlier research on variations in eating out by social class and age (Heald 1987, Warde & Martens 2000).

Changing meal times

While there have been major shifts in the pattern of meal times within British households over the last few decades, the significance of these changes is harder to identify. Evidence from time-use diaries (Cheng et al. 2007) shows a

5 Food and You is a representative survey of the UK’s adult population, conducted by the Food Standards Agency.

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very clear shift (see Figure 2).6 In the 1960s, there was a clear pattern of three or four regular meals a day, when most people had breakfast, lunch and dinner at similar times, with an additional meal taken by some people later in the evening. By the 2000s, the pattern of meal times was much less regular with people eating more frequently and at different times in the day. Often referred to as ‘snacking’ or ‘grazing’, these patterns have been associated with an alleged decline of family eating, including much debate about the supposed demise of the ‘family meal’.7

Figure 2: Changing UK meal times, 1961-2001Percentage of people eating or drinking inside or outside the home at different times of

day

source: Cabinet Office (2008), based on research by the Futures Foundation

Though based on rather thin evidence, the alleged decline of family meals has been linked to a range of social problems including an increase in eating disorders and a rise in childhood obesity, drug abuse and alcoholism (BBC News Online, 2 October 2006). One national newspaper (The Independent on Sunday) 6 Cheng et al. (2007) argue that while there has been an overall decline in the amount of time people spend eating and drinking at home (from 71 minutes/day in 1975 to 56 minutes/day in 2000), this pattern of decline is not confirmed by their analysis of episode data which measure the duration of eating events where the evidence shows ‘remarkable stability’ since 1975 (ibid.: 47). Indeed, the evidence suggests that people may actually be spending slightly longer per eating episode at home than 25 years ago, with 87 percent of at-home eating and drinking events lasting no more than 30 minutes in 1975 compared to 83 percent in 2000.7 Similar views are widespread across Europe. Compare, for example, Bugge and Almås’s (2006) discussion of the ‘disintegration of a daily ritual’ in their account of the domestic dinner in Norway with Helene Brembeck’s (2005) account of family dinners in Sweden which shows their resilience to commercial pressure from outlets such as McDonald’s.

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ran a campaign in 2006 to ‘save our Sunday lunch’. As part of this campaign, Richard Corrigan commented that ‘It’s so important that we sit around the table with our families for a proper meal at least once a week … Sunday is a very important day … and Sunday lunch is a big part of that – it’s sacred’ (11 June 2006). Jonathan Thompson referred to Sunday lunch as a ‘centuries-old tradition’ that was now in rapid decline. ‘As recently as a generation ago’, he wrote, ‘British families sat together for a meal nearly every day, but today a quarter of us don’t even have a dining table’. Restaurateur Oliver Peyton called the Sunday meal a sacred thing while chef Christophe Novelli referred to Sunday lunch as a great tradition that it would be sacrilege to lose (5 March 2006).

Social scientists have been writing about the social significance of ‘family meals’ for many years (cf. Charles & Kerr 1988, Murcott 1983, 2000). However, the evidence of long-term decline is far from well-established. Using oral history data from the Edwardian period, for example, Jackson et al. (2009a) show that eating together at home has been a middle-class aspiration for over a century though it has not been widely achieved in practice, varying by geographical region and social class, and subject to the vicissitudes of shift-work and other pressures on everyday family life. Writing in the context of an ESRC-funded research programme which she directed (The Nation’s Diet, 1992-98), Anne Murcott (1997) questioned the evidential basis on which many social commentators relied when suggesting that the family meal was in terminal decline. She argued that a family meal, eaten together with family members sitting round the table at the same time, might be an ideal to which many people aspire but that there was a big gap between actuality and aspiration. Sociological evidence also suggests that the amount of time families spend eating together may have decreased less than is frequently assumed if eating outside the home is included in the analysis (cf. Warde & Martens 2000).

Changing patterns of food consumption inside and outside the home reflect changes in family and household composition with increasing numbers of single-person households and growing numbers of same-sex and cohabiting couples (with and without children). Married couples with dependent children living in the same household now make up just over 25% of the total number of UK families though, arguably, the conventional ‘nuclear family’ remains an ideal-type in much of the public discourse about families and food (cf. Jackson 2009) (see Table 3).

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Table 3: Family and household composition, 2001-2011 (in thousands)

2001 2011With dependent children

Without dependent children

Total families

With dependent children

Without dependent children

Total families

Married couples 4,833 7,447 12,280 4,514 7,505 12,018

Civil partners 5 54 59Cohabiting couples (opposite sex)

808 1,321 2,129 1,097 1,755 2,853

Cohabiting couples(same sex)

44 45 3 60 63

Lone parent family 1,745 767 2,512 1,958 925 2,883All families 7,386 9,580 16,966 7,576 10,299 17,875

source: UK Census, Families and Households (2001 and 2011)

Cooking skills and gender roles

In January 2013, UK public health minister Anna Soubry decried the culture of TV dinners which she blamed for the erosion of family life, also deploring the habit of taking lunch at the office desk as bad for your health (Daily Telegraph 23 January 2013). Like the debate over the decline of the ‘family meal’, the evidence for these assertions is far from clear. Criticisms over the alleged decline of domestic cooking skills have been voiced at least since the nineteenth century when Friedrich Engels commented on the large number of women in Manchester who had never learned to cook (Engels 1845, quoted in The Economist, 27 July 2013). According to a recent survey of 4000 UK households by Kantar Worldpanel, Britons now spend around half of the time preparing meals that they did 20 years ago (34 minutes in 2012 compared to an hour in 1980).8 The same source reported that around 1.6 billion ready meals are consumed in the UK each year, compared to around 1.2 billion roasted meals, while 7 million TV viewers watched the Great British Bake Off. The implication is that people are cooking less while watching more cooking programmes on television.9

But much depends on what constitutes ‘cooking’ and whether processes like reheating prepared food in the microwave can be regarded as a skilled practice, similar in kind if not in degree to the skills involved in cooking fresh ingredients

8 ‘Can’t cook, won’t cook Britain’ (The Daily Mail, 27 March 2014).9 ‘Can’t cook, won’t cook – Britons stew in front of the TV instead of on the hob’ (The Guardian, 27 March 2014).

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‘from scratch’. Frances Short (2006) suggests that recent assertions about the inter-generational decline of cooking skills are based on scant evidence. Her own ethnographic work leads her to question the conventional analysis of ‘deskilling’ and to recognise a range of specific skills involved in domestic cooking (including mechanical, perceptual, conceptual, academic and planning skills).

With no definitive evidence on these issues, social commentators have been quick to identify a current deficit of cooking skills, particularly among working-class women, compared to earlier generations who were taught to cook by their mothers or in domestic science lessons at school (Meah & Watson 2011). Celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver have contributed to the debate, offering to ‘teach a town to cook’ by passing on basic cooking skills and a repertoire of simple recipes through his Ministry of Food in Rotherham. Critics have questioned the extent to which such TV programmes and associated campaigns ‘blame the victim’ rather than focusing on more systemic issues of deprivation and inequality, pathologising working-class mothers as occurred in previous TV series such as Jamie’s School Dinners where women in Rawmarsh (near Rotherham) were disparaged as ‘sinner ladies’ for defying the local school’s attempt to improve the quality of school meals (Fox & Smith 2011, Rich 2011).

There is growing evidence that British men are participating more fully in cooking and other forms of domestic labour as is occurring in other Western countries (Bianchi et al. 2000, Sullivan 2000, Aarseth 2009). UK time-use studies suggest that men’s total domestic work-time has increased from around 90 minutes per day in the 1960s to 148 minutes per day in the early 2000s, with time spent cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry increasing from c.20 minutes/day in the 1960s to c.50 minutes/day in the 2000s (Kan et al. 2011). While this may signal the emergence of new forms of ‘domestic masculinity’, following the lead of ‘celebrity chefs’ such as Jamie Oliver (Hollows 2003), in other cases men’s involvement in cooking may be seen as a ‘lifestyle choice’ or leisure activity, restricted to weekends and special occasions. Men still rarely engage fully in the routine work of ‘feeding the family’ which continues to be seen as ‘women’s work’ (cf. De Vault 1991). Ethnographic evidence also suggests that men’s entry into the domestic kitchen is not universally welcome, rendering such spaces ‘crowded’ or ‘uncanny’ as the power relations within such

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familiar environments becomes destabilised (Meah & Jackson 2013, see also Metcalfe et al. 2009).

Convenience food

The rapid growth in the consumption of ‘convenience’ food has given rise to serious concerns about public health, often framed in terms of disparaging comparisons with ‘proper meals’ (cooked from scratch using fresh ingredients) and implied moral judgments (as in popular references to ‘junk’ food). In practice, however, the ‘convenience’ sector is extremely diverse with a wide array of foods in frozen, chilled and other formats. Similar diversity applies to the way consumers use ‘convenience’ foods, often combining them with fresh ingredients, leading Marshall and Bell (2003: 62) to conclude that ‘convenience’ foods and ‘homemade’ foods belong to a continuum rather than to two separate categories. Similarly, Warde (1999: 519) argues that ‘convenience’ is not just a set of properties of specific food items but also a matter of social context. Empirical evidence shows how mothers negotiate the discourse of ‘convenience’, managing their children’s food choices to conform to the conventions of ‘proper’ food while embracing the convenience of ready-meals (Carrigan et al. 2006). Generational differences in the acceptability of ‘convenience’ food have also been reported (Moisio et al. 2004). The growth in demand for ‘convenience’ food can be understood in terms of its ability to meet the needs of modern households including the changing routines and rhythms associated with increased female labour-force participation, enabled by technological innovations such as microwave cooking.10

These trends are set to continue, with predictions of a 70% growth in the takeaway and convenience food sector over the next fifteen years (Future Foundation 2006). The consumption of ‘convenience’ food continues to grow both in terms of volume and variation of goods (Jabs & Devine 2006, Olsen et al. 2009, Warde et al. 2007). Existing knowledge of the sector includes quantitative studies of how much and when consumers use ‘convenience’ products as well as the diffusion of consumer attitudes to ‘convenience’ food in different populations (cf. Ahlgren et al. 2005, Marshall & Bell 2003, Olsen et al. 2009). Research also

10 The Food and You survey reports that 93% of UK consumers currently have access to a microwave oven (FSA 2013).

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includes qualitative studies which cover consumer understandings and incorporation of ‘convenience’ foods within the household (e.g. Bugge & Almås 2006, Hand & Shove 2007, Moisio et al. 2004). Research is increasingly focusing on the way consumers understand ‘convenience’ food in terms of more sustainable and healthier alternatives (e.g. Connolly and Prothero 2008, Bassett et al. 2008).

There are also several studies of maternal attitudes to ‘convenience’ foods and the challenges such foods pose for culturally approved notions of motherhood (e.g. Carrigan & Szmigin 2006, Carrigan et al. 2006, Bava et al. 2008). For example, processed baby food is rarely marketed as ‘convenience’ food and research has focused on the symbolic meaning mothers attach to such products as well as the pressures mothers feel from discourses of mothering and risk (e.g. Afflerback et al. 2013, Cairns et al.2013, Cook 2009).

Governance and regulation

According to Barling and Lang (2003), successive British governments have been reluctant to formulate a systematic approach to the governance of the agri-food system with regulatory responsibilities currently spread across several departments (including DEFRA, DH and FSA) and with different arrangements applying in Scotland and Northern Ireland from those that apply in England and Wales. DEFRA’s Food 2030 report (DEFRA 2010) identified six priority areas for food and farming: enabling and encouraging people to eat a healthy, sustainable diet; ensuring a resilient, profitable and competitive food system; increasing food production sustainably; reducing the food system’s greenhouse gas emissions; reducing, reusing and reprocessing waste; and increasing the impact of skills, knowledge, research and technology. These policy priorities were underpinned by a Foresight project on The Future of Food and Farming (2011) and by the Cabinet Office’s Food Matters report (2010). Despite promising initiatives such as DEFRA’s Green Food Project, there has been little sign of the ‘more joined-up food policy’ that was called for in the Food 2030 report (2010: 4). In terms of the promotion of ‘healthy eating’, for example, a series of separate initiatives has been pursued (from Healthy Start to Change 4 Life), alongside separate campaigns by the major retailers (such as Tesco’s Eat Happy initiative and Morrison’s Let’s Grow campaign).

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Despite the government’s claim that ‘The food we eat in the UK is the safest it has ever been’ (DEFRA 2010: 12), consumer confidence has been repeatedly undermined by a series of ‘food scares’ and farming crisis, and foodborne disease continues to pose a significant threat to public health. Cases of Listeria, for example, have more than doubled since 2000 and Campylobacter from infected poultry flocks is currently responsible for around 460,000 cases of food poisoning, 22,000 hospitalisations and 110 deaths each year. Celebrity chefs have added their voice to recent food-related debates, including Jamie Oliver’s campaigns to improve the quality of school meals and domestic cooking skills (in Jamie’s School Meals and Jamie’s Ministry of Food), Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaigns about intensive chicken production (in Hugh’s Chicken Run) and the combined efforts of Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay to encourage more sustainable fishing (in The Big Fish Fight). Consumers are now exposed to a vast array of TV programmes about food, with celebrity chefs acting as important cultural intermediaries on food-related matters (cf. Rousseau 2012).

Much of the emphasis in current government policy has been on encouraging consumers to make ‘informed choices’ based on a better understanding of the implications of their dietary decisions. But, as Food 2030 acknowledged, consumers’ choices are constrained by their limited time and knowledge, and by considerations of cost, convenience and retail offers (DEFRA 2010: 47). An emphasis on consumer choice and individualised responsibility is therefore only a partial approach to a problem with more systemic roots as has been acknowledged by those who challenge the existence of a linear connection between consumer attitudes and behaviour (cf. Shove 2010).

Public confidence in food supply chains, particularly at the cheaper end of the market, has been shaken (as demonstrated in recent consumer research conducted by Harris Interactive for the FSA).11 Regulators are under increasing pressure to implement more stringent quality controls and traceability will be of increasing importance for food producers, retailers and manufacturers. For consumers with sufficient cultural and financial capital, such scares are likely to lead them to purchase more organic, free range and Fairtrade products and to favour smaller suppliers whose commitment to high quality standards and clearly-stated provenance are likely to provide a competitive advantage. Those 11 Harris Interactive undertook their consumer research in two waves (in February and August 2013). The reports are available on the FSA website: http://www.food.gov.uk/ (accessed 28 March 2014).

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with fewer resources will have less opportunity to exercise choice over what they consumer. Further pressure is also likely from consumers and government in terms of reducing the salt, fat and sugar content of foods as has been seen with recent calls to reduce the amount of added sugar in processed food and drink in order to address concerns about obesity and diabetes.12

Recent increases in global grain prices and growing pressure on water supplies have resulted in rising costs in almost every area of food production. While trust in cheaper foods has been shaken, necessity will drive an increasing number of consumers to look for bargains in ‘deep discount’ stores like Aldi, Lidl and Netto, while middle-class consumers are likely to use these stores to purchase ‘luxury’ products like olive oil, parmesan cheese and wine which are notably cheaper than those sold in ‘mainstream’ supermarkets.

Consumer ethics and the ‘quality turn’

One reaction to the increasing intensification and globalization of agri-food systems (Goodman & Watts 1997) has been a turn to more local, seasonal and high-quality foods (Goodman 2003). The UK has seen an increase in farmers’ markets and other forms of alternative food networks (AFNs) with an emphasis of reducing ‘food miles’ and promoting locally-grown, organic and artisan goods (Maye et al. 2011). Morgan et al. (2006) contrast a dominant ‘neo-liberal economy’ with what they call a ‘new moral economy’ of food, characterised by a concerns for health, well-being, fair trade and more equitable economic development. Lang (2009) notes a similar series of ‘quality’ issues in terms of the development of taste, seasonality, localness and fresh food and in relation to questions of identity and authenticity.

While the UK market for Fairtrade and other self-consciously ‘ethical’ foods (such as organic, free range and Freedom Foods) remains relatively small, estimated by the Cabinet Office (2008) at less than 5% of the overall market (see Figure 3), there has been growing interest in the way consumers negotiate multiple and sometimes conflicting

Figure 3: The growing UK market for ‘ethical food’

12 ‘Campaigners vow to cut sugar in food’ (BBC News Online, 9 January 2014). The current campaign by the campaign group Action on Sugar is similar to that employed by Consensus Action on Salt and Health in the 1990s to reduce salt levels in food.

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source: Cabinet Office (2008),based on research by the Cooperative Bank and IGD

claims (concerning animal welfare, environmental sustainability, quality and taste among a host of other ethical and practical considerations). Anthropologists and geographers have explored the way ethical responsibilities towards ‘distant others’ may be traded-off against the interests of family and friends closer to home (Miller 2001, Jackson et al. 2009b), while sociologists have examined the way ethical principles are negotiated into practice (Watson & Meah 2013). Focusing on the wider gamut of consumer ethics may be a more appropriate strategy than concentrating on the relatively small contingent of those who identify self-consciously as ‘ethical consumers’ (cf. Barnett et al. 2011).

Food waste

Given current concerns about growing food insecurity even among the most affluent countries of the Global North, there is significant pressure to reduce the amount of food that goes to waste, currently estimated at between one third and one half of the total food produced worldwide (Stuart 2009, IME 2013). The UK government estimates that UK households throw away 8.3 million tonnes of food a year of which 65% is avoidable, representing a potential saving of around £480 per household per year (DEFRA 2010: 55). While groups like WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) seek to change public attitudes through campaigns like ‘Love food, hate waste’, recent research emphasises that food waste often arises from routine domestic practices (such as supermarket shopping or catering to children’s different dietary needs and preferences),

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rather than representing a profligate attitude to food (Evans 2012, see also Evans et al. 2013).

The potential trade-off between food safety and the reduction of food waste has also received attention with the potential for cash-strapped consumers to eat food that is beyond it use-by date (Watson & Meah 2013). This is an example of what might be called a ‘good reason for bad behaviour’, where consumers eschew official food safety advice not through ignorance or wilfulness but through the exercise of competing logics. A similar example is provided by Tim Lobstein’s research on the relative costs of different sources of calories (reported in The Guardian, 1 October 2008). Lobstein points out how consumers can derive 100 calories of energy for 51 pence in the case of fresh broccoli versus 2 pence from frozen chips. Poorer consumers are understandably drawn to the cheaper option, especially when they fear that the healthier and more expensive option may simply end up in the waste stream, rejected by family members for whom fruit and vegetables do not figure highly in their dietary preferences. The implication is to exercise caution before castigating consumers for making ‘bad’ choices, when further research may reveal different reasons for their apparently aberrant behaviour.

Conclusion

This review has identified a number of current trends in UK food consumption, showing how public debate and media commentary frequently runs ahead of the available evidence. Food has powerful symbolic meanings, derived from its material and visceral properties, which help explain why it is so readily moralised and politicised. As US food historian Warren Belasco concludes: ‘Food is a strong “edible dynamic”, binding present and past, individual and society, private household and world economy, palate and power’ (2007: 5). Respect for evidence is therefore an important precondition for avoiding the kind of inappropriate moral judgments that all too readily circulate around the place of food in contemporary public life.

Professor Peter JacksonDepartment of GeographyUniversity of Sheffield

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Sheffield S10 2TN0114 222 7908p.a.jackson@sheffield.ac.ukhttp://www.sheffield.ac.uk/foodfutures

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