We were thrilled when our Managing Director Nikki Redhead was asked to appear on ITV’s Calendar news programme last week. She featured in a segment on how the pandemic has affected the region’s food industry, specifically looking at the journey from ‘field to fork’. Nikki spoke on camera about the challenges of distribution during the period of panic-buying at the supermarkets. She explained how Keep it Cool’s refrigerated same-day transport service helped growers and manufacturers get their precious produce to its endpoint quickly and without wastage.

The programme also interviewed Crowkeld Farm in North Yorkshire about the challenges of rare-breed sheep farming, and My Lahore restaurant on the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme. These businesses represented the beginning and end of the ‘field to fork’ journey. You can watch the whole programme here, and in this blog post, we’ll look at what is meant by ‘field to fork’ and explore the food supply chain in the time of Covid-19.

The ‘field to fork’ movement

‘Field to fork’, ‘farm to fork’ or ‘farm to table’ all refer to a social movement which promotes local food, often in restaurants and in schools. Field to fork often incorporates food traceability (or “knowing where your food comes from”). The field to fork movement has grown at the same time as interest in and concerns about food safety, freshness and seasonality, as well as the economic health of small-scale farmers and producers.

The ‘Farm to Fork‘ strategy is at the heart of the European Green Deal, aiming to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly. As part of this strategy, the EU says that food chains need to be sustainable and resilient to crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. They believe this brings new opportunities for operators in the food value chain. New technologies and scientific discoveries, combined with increasing public awareness and demand for sustainable food, benefit all involved.

The impact of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to our day to day lives, including in the food supply chain.

From travel restrictions to social distancing, consumers stockpiling goods and hospitality businesses forced to close, a lot has changed in a short space of time. Even though the UK is no longer in lockdown (with the exception of some regional restrictions) takeaways continue to deal with increased demand as their customers are now often home-based. Supermarkets have once again brought in restrictions on certain items as customers show new signs of panic-buying.

Labour shortages and farming

There was major concern over a shortage of labour to deal with the late summer harvest. This typically relies on transient, seasonal workers, but recruitment proved difficult with social distancing and travel restrictions in place. High-value commodities, like fruit and vegetables, were at a high risk of logistical disruptions due to their perishability.  

Distribution  

Another key part of the food supply chain is transportation and this is where Keep It Cool and other logistics companies come in. At Keep it Cool, we specialise in same-day temperature-controlled deliveries of food produce. Our ability to get a driver on the road within an hour has proved invaluable in transporting food from producers and suppliers to supermarkets and wholesalers.

Looking beyond COVID-19 

An article by the Institute for Sustainable Food at Sheffield University claims that the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the fragility of our food supplies. It says: “The coronavirus pandemic is a symptom of a broken food system. From the interaction between humans and wildlife believed to have caused the outbreak, to the empty supermarket shelves that marked the beginning of lockdown, and the inherent difficulties of returning to crowded cafes and restaurants, the fragility of global food supply and distribution chains has been laid bare.”

However, the article ends on a more positive note: “The coronavirus pandemic started with a broken food system. But by building equitable, local and resilient food chains through investment in skilled work, fairer trade and greener cities, the government can secure our recovery and help to prevent the next crisis.”

What’s clear is that efficient operation of the food supply chain over the next couple of months will be critical in what happens next.