The Food Foundation Podcast

Alice English, a senior project officer in the Place Base Food Systems team at the Food Foundation tells us about a new report published this week called Farming for Five a Day, which looks at the resilience of the UK's supply of fruit, vegetables, and beans in a changing climate. Click here for more information and here for the Food Foundation newsletter.

Leon Ballin, Place-based Food System Manager at the Food Foundation is joined by a panel of experts to explore household food insecurity.Andrew Forsey, National Director of Feeding Britain, Penny Walters, Food Ambassador at the Food Foundation, Susanne Jaspers, Senior Research Fellow with the SOAS Food Studies Center and Elaine Morgan, the Principal for Strategy Reform at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority debate the question of whether the government's commitment to ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels can be achieved through change in local food support systems. Click here for the Food Foundation newsletter.

Hannah Abrams, Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at the Food Foundation, argues the case for the HAF (Holiday Activities and Food) Programme that keeps kids on Free School Meals properly nourished during the school holidays. She argues that with the Government's pledge to expand school meals to an additional half a million children from the September 2026 school term, the expansion of HAF is a missing link.If you'd like to support Feeding Britain's campaign to expand HAF alongside free school meals, click here, and here for the Food Foundation newsletter.For further reading check out The Children's Society report: Walking into nothing: The hidden cost of the school holidays for families | The Children's Society and Feeding Britain's briefing here: https://feedingbritain.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Feeding-Britain-HAF-Briefing.pdf

Anna Wylie, a beef and arable young farmer, is on the pod this week to tell us about a new crop of young farmers who want their voices heard. Founder and chair the UK Youth Food and Farming Forum, Anna tells us about why strengthening youth participation in food and farming policy is essential to building a more sustainable food system and how to make this happen.Click here for more information on the Forum and here for the Food Foundation newsletter.

Sophia Greenblatt, Public Affairs Lead for the Food Foundation unpacks the latest food insecurity data from The Food Foundation, and what it reveals about this significant political moment as Andy Burnham settles into Downing Street.Click here for more information on food insecurity data, and here for the Food Foundation newsletter. 

Tony Burdon, Head of the Food Business Transformation team at the Food Foundation tells us about forecasts for a Super El Nino coming our way, and what that means for food prices and supplies. Click here for the Food Foundation newsletter and here to learn more about our work on climateflation.

Rob Oxley from the Public Health Nutrition Team at the University of York tells us about Fix Our Food's latest research into the benefits of free school meal auto enrolment. Click here for more information and here for the Food Foundation newsletter.

Matthew Thomson from Sustainable Food Cornwall tells us about From The Ground Up, a report from the Citizens Advisory Council's What Works Here inquiries into local food systems.The Citizen Advisory Council comprises diverse citizens drawn the Food Foundation’s Food Ambassadors programme and from Food and Farming Countryside Commission's The Food Conversation. The Citizen Advisory Council has been working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since the summer of 2025 to ensure that citizen knowledge is embedded in the development of England’s food strategy. The Citizen Advisory Council travelled to four different regions in England for the What Works Here Inquires: Cornwall, York and North Yorkshire, Liverpool and Merseyside, and the North East. Keenan Humble, mentioned in the Pod Bite, is Director for Feeding Liverpool and supported with the Liverpool and Merseyside inquiry.

Could beans change the world?With the climate changing, the cost of living going up and our guts suffering from the fibre gap, beans are a real opportunity. Now it's time to scale these tasty superheroes. Paul Newnham, CEO of the SDG2 Advocacy Hub and the Chief Bean Officer at Beans is How, reports from London Climate Action Week on the growth of the Bang in Some Beans campaign - now at 41 Keen Bean businesses who have committed to the movement. The Food Foundation and Veg Power have teamed up on a mission to double UK bean consumption by 2028. Click here for more information about our Keen Bean businesses. Don't miss out on snap analysis and updates: sign up here for the Food Foundation newsletter.