As I write this column on the eve of the Beyond the Big Four-themed Re:fresh conference - exploring the numerous and varied supply opportunities that exist outside the UK’s largest supermarkets - how ironic it is that the government should this week inadvertently try to impede access to one of the avenues that will no doubt be up for discussion on the day.

Supplying the NHS is big business for many fresh produce companies, especially with healthy eating having risen to the top of the government’s food and farming agenda in recent years.

But the document issued by the department of health this week on hospital food procurement is at best shoddy and ill-conceived and, at worst, poses a potentially costly threat to the UK’s fresh produce industry.

Sustainable Food - a Guide for Hospitals seriously fails to comprehend the complex nature of the food supply chain, and along the way also manages to display no grasp whatsoever of the government’s own definitions of seasonal food and sustainable procurement. Citing some very mixed messages on seasonality, local produce and the environmental impact of food, the document is a striking example of the lack of joined-up thinking that seems to have become this government’s wont of late.

Hopefully, the department of health will see sense and move to issue guidelines that won’t end up seriously hitting the industry’s pockets.