Citizens will be integral to the development of the new Food Strategy. This world-leading approach puts citizens’ everyday experiences of food at the heart of government policy development. Alongside industry voices, academics and civil society leaders, citizens will be able to shape the strategy by sharing the hopes, needs and concerns of people across the country.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is working with the Food Foundation (FF) and the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) to capitalise on work that both organisations have done already with citizens. The Food Foundation will invite their Food Ambassadors, a diverse group of citizens from around the UK with lived or living experience of food insecurity. Aged 14 years and up, the ambassadors contribute to FF and partner campaigns, research, and events as experts by experience. FFCC will bring citizens who recently participated in The Food Conversation, the UK’s largest deliberation on food systems. Food Conversation citizens have been chosen through a gold-standard selection process structured to be representative and inclusive. Political leanings, age, ethnicity, education level, disability status, household composition and many other criteria were all considered to ensure the citizens are representative of the British population.

The first phase of work with citizens will take place over the spring and summer 2025. Workshops with citizens, shaped by a Citizen Advisory Council, will strengthen the work of the Defra officials and their wider programme of stakeholder engagement, which includes the Food Strategy Advisory Board. Citizen involvement will test the comprehensiveness of the strategy, highlight gaps and focus on policy implementation issues and challenges.

Following the summer workshops, further engagement will be developed and led by the citizens involved. They will have the chance to ask further questions, reach out to different communities, explore underdeveloped areas of the strategy as it evolves, and bring their unique perspective to help this government deliver a truly world-class new Food Strategy.

Anna Taylor, Executive Director of the Food Foundation says: “I’m very pleased that we’re working closely with our Food Ambassadors, FFCC and DEFRA to ensure that citizens themselves can be integrally involved in the Food Strategy process. The inclusion of citizens’ voices is a vital part of creating lasting change, durable policies and a better food system that works for everyone in society.”

Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive of FFCC, says: “This level of inclusion, transparency and ambition for a new and comprehensive food strategy is very welcome. It will ensure the food strategy reflects the everyday experiences and the aspirations of the British public, who – we know – want government to focus on food and its impacts on health and wellbeing, climate and nature. The citizens who have participated in the Food Conversation welcome this approach and are pleased to see their work taken seriously by this government.”