BUYING BRITISH

The Bread and Butter Report

BRITS DON’T BUY INTO BRITISH
SAY EXPERTS IN REPORT BY COUNTRY LIFE

Though British people claim to support buying national produce, in fact they don’t, an expert report commissioned by Country Life has confirmed. Despite having the fourth-largest food and drink manufacturing industry in the world, the UK currently imports twice as much food as it exports.

The Bread and Butter Report was prepared by Country Life, the only major British butter brand, and brought together key industry experts ahead of British Food Fortnight to discuss issues facing the British food industry and how to tackle them.

The report reveals that only a third of adults pay attention to where the products they buy are made or grown, even though three quarters recognise that buying British food supports British businesses. With only two in five trusting British food over imported, the government, food producers and retailers have a job to convince consumers to buy British food, say the experts. While almost half over-55s see a British origin as important in food, this share halves among 16-24 year olds. The experts agreed that encouraging the public to engage more with local and British food could help these foods to secure a place in shopping baskets in the longer term.

The expert panel called for more to be done in British schools, to educate children directly about the value of British food and to teach them where food comes from. Mark Allen CEO of Dairy Crest, one of Britain’s largest dairy companies, and Vice Chairman of Dairy UK, the representative industry research body said: “If the majority of kids think milk comes from Tesco, then we have a problem.”

Julia Glotz considers that while the “Britishness” of a food may not be the primary reason a person will buy it, a strong brand self-identifying as British may nonetheless encourage consumers to buy it for that reason. Country Life brand manager Sophie Lyons said that given the public perception of British food, the quality of the product has to come first and that a product's Britishness is no longer enough to encourage consumers to buy it – they have to know that it tastes good.

The debate began with the panel discussing the fact that while British food is important to some consumers, many Britons are unaware of or have not embraced the rise of quality food in this country. While a sea change has taken place in the last 25 years with the rise of farmers’ markets, organic food, domestic artisan cheeses and an explosion in small producers, it is largely restricted to specific social groups. Elsewhere on the continent there is much greater interest in locally produced food.
Moreover, research consistently indicates that cost is the most important concern for most consumers, particularly now while household budgets are already stretched, with the provenance of food mattering significantly less.

Compounding these difficulties is a public perception associating British food with mass production and a lack of quality. Matthew Fort pointed out the differences in reputation enjoyed by French and British food in the UK and that by contrast, the French and Italians largely buy their national food in the belief that it is better. Country Life’s own research supports this: many consumers, it has found, make no immediate connection between “British food” and “great food”.

In part, argued Mark Allen, this may be due to a media culture that emphasises crises and disputes in the British food industry, giving consumers an erroneously negative impression and failing to educate them about the quality and successes of British food.

The overall conclusion of the report suggests that given that price remains the primary concern for consumers making decisions about which products to buy, brands must emphasise the specific advantages of buying British – not least, where appropriate, the financial advantages.
In the end, customers have the power to effect change. If they unite behind domestically produced goods, supermarkets will respond to that demand. If they campaign for clearer labelling, governments will comply under whatever legislation is in place.

If their interest in food continues to grow, they will expect a world-class domestic product to match it. Happily, in the case of butter, they already have one.