The Birmingham Food Council CIC is independent, a critical friend to the socio-political set-up.
Our focus over the last few years has been on three sets of issues that we feel do not receive enough attention: the economics of the food network, also food safety, integrity and assurance, plus the role we can play in responding to the strategic challenges of food security whether at a global, national or city level.
Within this remit, we pay particular attention to the widely disregarded space where the £-value and power is, i.e. between farm gate and retail or wholesale outlet.
In 2017-18, we ran our first horizon scanning project; see the project report Back from the Future. In summary, the UK food system is under threat. Yet few appear aware of highly probable scenarios over the next few years. So we developed a scenarios tool for socio-political decision-makers, called simply The Game.
We also commission other ‘narrativium’ projects, until the pandemic, curated under the leadership of Ian Sergeant. They all still have particular emphasis on engaging the upcoming generation to help us communicate the important issues we raise.
The info-diagram below is a summary of our current focus of activity. As you can see, much of our work is about risks to UK food supplies, so food security matters, including UK preparedness for future system shocks. spoiler alert: The UK isn’t.
This link is to a PDF version of the info-graphic which has links relevant info on this website. (note: Not all items are linked to a page.)
An overview of our strategic plan is here.
You can find our reports and papers here and blogposts here.
Our Annual Reports and accounts are published here.
We also collate reports and papers by other people and organisation which you can access here.