Experts Call for an ‘Evolution’ of Welsh Food Supply Chains

Rural Enterprise , 12th August 2020

An impending health crisis makes it more important than ever that we evolve our food systems in Wales.

That was one of the topics discussed during a CLA Cymru debate, Future of the Environment – A Strong Partnership With Business, at the Virtual Royal Welsh Show.

Huw Thomas, Managing Director of Pembrokeshire-based Puffin Produce, posed the question:

“We have a health crisis coming towards us – how do we make sure we put enough vegetables in front of the Welsh population to enhance our health?”

The £25 million turnover Puffin Produce works with more than 30 farms across Wales to put 50,000 tonnes of potatoes and 1,000 acres of vegetables on supermarket shelves each year.

Huw called for an evolution in food systems, with consideration given to initiatives such as local storage rather than the centralised storage which firms such as Puffin currently adopt.

But he warned that any changes needed to be efficient, and stressed that supermarkets also need to play a part.

“We have to evolve the systems we have already,” said Huw, who outlined a project that Puffin has carried out with Tesco to reduce the carbon footprint of the firm’s potatoes. “Please don’t ignore the retailers in this. If we going to reinvent food systems we will spend years arguing about it.”

Mid-Wales farmer Mark Williams said he had “never felt quite so important” since the Covid-19 pandemic had brought about first panic-buying of food and then a focus on the local supply chain and Welsh farm produce.

“It is vitally important we are self-sufficient – that we look after ourselves, local communities and look very much to the future,” he said.

But he warned that, in order to maintain the UK’s high standards surrounding animal welfare and the environment, the emphasis needed to be on imports meeting those same standards. He cited wool as an example, saying we had become reliant on China for processing it cheaply, regardless of the environmental impacts of the methods used there.

Professor Terry Marsden, Director of the Sustainable Places Research Institute at Cardiff University, called for a move from the consensus on what the problems are towards prognosis. Practical policies and innovative systems for land holders and food producers were now needed, he said, to build resilience to the problems of pandemics, market disruption, government disruption and uncertainty.