Category: Food and the city economy

How the UK VAT system identifies vested interests costing us and the earth

Few realise the UK VAT system can precisely identify, at the point of sale, the major powerful global interests skewing our food system. Here’s how it is:

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The Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations affect the food system

England’s CMO, Professor Dame Sally Davies, made fifteen recommendations in her 2018 Report: Health 2040 — Better Health Within Reach. Of these, five are directly concerned with the food we eat, and two others (about multi-morbidity) have implications for...

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Our Annual Report: Enlightening & disturbing, an urgent wake-up call

Here’s what some reviewers of our 2017-2018 Annual Report said: “Enlightening and disturbing: an urgent wake-up call for us to take these issues seriously, talk about them, raise awareness and influence policy-makers.”

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Start to (late night) finish of a Scottish potato harvest

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When is a food company not a food company?

A crowded room, too narrow for the number of people jostling for tea, coffee and the pastries on offer. A chance for people from the food industry to mingle with university researchers and find common ground. A chance for academics...

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Our response to the draft London Food Strategy

We submitted Our response to the draft London Food Strategy on 5th July 2018. In this blogpost, we point you in the direction of why we said what we did.

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The status quo, vested interests & a simple metric for civic leaders

Where, we asked ourselves, should we recommend civic leaders to focus their time and effort given what else is on their agenda? What’s within their power to do?

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Government Chemist Conference: Homo sapiens or pan narrans?

Are we, I ask at the start of my presentation to the Government Chemist Conference on 14th June, home sapiens (wise wo/man) or pan narrans, the story-telling ape?

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Inside Government presentation: Background details & info sources

This blogpost gives detailed info associated with my presentation to the Inside Government event Working towards global food security in London on 26th April 2018.

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Food system dynamics: Part III — Vested interests

Why aren’t we tackling the potentially catastrophic threats to our food system?

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