Tim Lang of City University, a panellist at last week’s City Food Lecture, told the organic industry it is letting down poorer consumers by concentrating too much effort on selling to UK supermarkets.
Lang was responding to Soil Association policy director Lord Peter Melchett, who told the audience that supermarkets have been extremely successful in increasing sales of organic food. Melchett added, however, that “five out of 10 organic shoppers prefer not to buy their [organic] food from a supermarket”.
More than 50 per cent of lower income consumers buy organic produce, many through box schemes and farmers’ markets, claimed Melchett. “It needn’t be more expensive than non-organic food, [as it is] in supermarkets,” he admitted.
Lang said: “People on low incomes aspire to eat just as well as everyone else. At the moment, the organic movement does not take low income [consumers] seriously.
“Slowly, inexorably, the movers and shakers in national and international food policy are having to recognise that environmental issues are are just not going away, any more than is the awkward evidence about public health and food.
“Issues such as climate change, water scarcity and fuel-dependency are now central. But as this new agenda emerges, we must not jettison the equally strong evidence about social inequalities or the case for injecting social justice into food policy,” said Lang.
“The rich world has had a half century of abundant food, endless choice and everyday lower prices, but that paradigm is coming to an end. A new framework is emerging. The question is whether business embraces and participates in this new agenda or denies it and adds to confusion.”
Another panelist, Waitrose chairman Sir Stuart Hampson, pointedly defended his chain’s policy and countered: “We must educate consumers that good food does not cost less. Good food costs more, but it is worth the difference. Supermarkets have a huge role to play in that.”
