Welcome to Veg Fest!

Morning all

Good morning! Please do use the chat function to ask your questions here as we go

Asa a commercial business, how have you justified any extra costs, if there have been any, in such tight times?

e.g. Is it offset with less expensive items such as meats?

Jess, do you see any tension between the huge growth in processed meat-free products / 'vegan' marketing and encouraging people to eat a healthier diet overall?

A question for Hannah - Have you used any of the best practice or learnings from nurseries/schools in other sections of your business to target older consumers? If so how have you done this and what have the challenges been?

How does increased productivity relate to nutritional value? And how much of it is produced sustainably or dare I ask organically?

Good Q

Is there ever been a call to get seasonal workers replaced by school leavers as a social gap year?

If fruit and veg productivity in the UK is increasing, but fruit and veg consumption has not increased at the same rate, what happens with the excess capacity?

Ali, we know we don't grow or import nearly enough for people to eat 5 a day. What do you see as the options for us closing that gap?

Great to hear about the work that Birds Eye has been doing, and other retailers involved in Veg Power etc. But for tackling food inequalities - lower income families who may not have access to fridges / freezers or time to cook from fresh - doesn't more need to be done in the out of home hot food sector (e.g. takeaways).

I agree with Anthony, you can educate children but if their families don’t have the tools so cook its hard. I think the figures say that the lowest 20% of income families would have to spend 39% of their income to it in guidance with the governments ‘eat well guide’

To eat in guidance*

Newest figures from Food Foundation’s Broken Plate report say that those on the lowest 10% of incomes would have to spend 76% of their disposable income to afford Eatwell guide diet.

The 2020 Broken Plate report can be found here: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/FF-Broken-Plate-2020-DIGITAL-FULL.pdf

The Broken Plate figure Amber has quoted is UK wide and slightly different across the 5 nations.

Ali for PM!

Ali, I would vote for you!

Thanks everyone, really interesting!

Brilliant panellists. Thank you so much

Thanks to everyone

Next we have Changing behaviour webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIocuuqrj8iG9ReFx9bL1Gs5WvySgvMwK0q

https://foodfoundation.org.uk/event/veg-fest/

Thanks everyone, very interesting insights

See the rest of the Veg Fest programme here: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/event/veg-fest/

thanks all

This was really interesting. Many thanks to the panellists.

Thank you