A new report has been released that has shown our ever-growing reliance on foreign food and produce.

The United Kingdom’s ‘self-sufficiency ratio’ has declined from almost 90% in the early 1990s to a figure just below 70%, thus potentially jeopardising our own food security a paper has warned.

The ratio measures the amount of home-grown and self-produced food on these shores when compared to imported produce.

Whilst the average ratio stands at 68%, that number is even lower for fresh fruit and vegetables which come in at just 12% and 58% respectively. It is estimated that we Brits cumulatively spent £8bn on these fresh, imported items.

The report drew a cautionary statement from a cross-party committee of MP’s who said that whilst consumers needed a diverse range of choice whilst shopping, they could be vulnerable to external factors out of the control of local, regional and national governments.

“The UK may be food secure at present,” they declared, “[but] it would be unwise to allow a situation to arise in which we were almost entirely dependent on food imports given future challenges to food production arising from climate change and changing global demands.”

Meanwhile, Anne McIntosh, the Chair of the committee that drew up the report, echoed the cross party committee’s response: “Complacency is a genuine risk to future food security. If we want our food production and supply systems to be secure, Government and food producers must plan to meet the impacts of climate change, popular growth and increasing global demand.”

Alongside warnings, the document also advised that more should be done to increase the domestic growing season by following in the footsteps of currently unique agricultural complexes like Thanet Earth, which now produces around 33% of British cucumbers and tomatoes from its site in Kent.

A spokesperson for Defra, the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, insisted that they were not complacent about the issue.

“We invest £45m each year to uphold [food security]. We are not complacent which is why we are committed to continuing to deliver on the recommendations of [the report] into the future of food and farming,” they said.

The report has called for:

• Supermarkets to shorten supply chains to reduce potential threats posed by disruptions.
• UK farmers to extend season production of fresh fruit and vegetables.
• The Government to produce a detail emissions reduction report in order to aid the UK agricultural sector.

As part of the catering industry, how are you sourcing your food and produce? Do you make an effort to source locally?