COVID-19 and food supply

The Government is pleased with the Committee’s observations in relation to Defra’s response within conclusion and recommendation 1 and will continue to work closely with retailers. The Government was monitoring the situation through the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) from the end of January and we were in contact with representatives of the Food Chain Emergency Liaison Group (FCELG) from early February. In early March, we began to receive intelligence from companies with European operations and, at that point, it became clear that the UK was likely to experience demand issues. Although empty shelves were being reported in some other countries, we now know that there were variations in the actual level of increased demand countries across Europe were experiencing. Italy, for example, experienced a relatively small increase that began in mid to late February, whilst Spain saw a sharp increase that peaked in the middle of March. In the UK, consumer purchasing of certain products surged in the weeks leading up to lockdown, with number of visits and basket size increasing significantly. This was portrayed in the mainstream media, and on social media, as the result of panic buyers stripping shelves of all available products. The reality was that a much more complex combination of behaviours led to demand for certain longer life products and staples, such as pasta, outstripping retailers’ ability to restock their stores. The fact that people were advised to avoid pubs, restaurants and cafes is also likely to have contributed to people purchasing more food in supermarkets. It is inevitable that UK supply chain would struggle to cope with the increased demand experienced in March and April, but the food industry response has demonstrated resilience and that it can adapt to uncertain events as they unfold. We are working closely with industry to learn from this experience, with the aim of minimising the likelihood of any future disruption to the food supply chain leading to shortages of products on shelves. Conclusion and Recommendation 3: It is entirely reasonable and predictable that consumers would want to buy more food in anticipation of a lockdown, the need to self- isolate if they developed COVID-19 symptoms; or school closures and changed working patterns resulting in more meals eaten at home. The Government and retailers, including convenience stores, failed to develop an effective joint communications plan in anticipation of increased consumer demand. At a time when the public was looking to the Government for advice on how to live safely, we consider that the Government could have made more effort to provide reassurances. In the event of further lockdowns or restrictions, the Government should ensure that more emphasis is placed on reassuring the public that there will be enough food and essential supplies for everyone.

The Government has taken unprecedented and substantial action to ensure that no child should go hungry as we take measures to tackle coronavirus, including in relation to free school meals. Minister Prentis chaired a cross-Government Task Force on Food and Other Essential Supplies to the Vulnerable in order to bring together and drive forward Government activity on access to food. We continued to provide schools with their expected funding, including funding to cover benefits-related free school meals (FSM) and universal infant FSM. Schools continued to provide meal options for all children who were in school, and meals were available free of charge to pupils eligible for FSM. In addition, schools were free to consider the best solution for providing support to pupils eligible for benefits-related FSM who were staying at home. In the first instance, we asked schools to support eligible pupils at home by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. We have always encouraged schools to firstly consider if they can use their own local food parcel arrangements to support families with food and we are aware of excellent examples of where schools and their food providers have delivered this. However, we recognised that providing meals and food parcels was not a practical option for all schools. That is why on 31 March we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the Department for Education. Initially, the scheme’s gift cards could be spent in stores who already had eGift card arrangements in place with our supplier. This included Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, M&S and Waitrose. Other supermarkets were encouraged to join the scheme, where they had the infrastructure to deliver eGift cards across their network of stores. As the scheme progressed, we were able to add Aldi, McColl’s, Iceland and the Company Shop Group. Alternatively, schools could take local approaches to providing FSM and claim for the costs to be reimbursed. This included the option to make local voucher arrangements with supermarkets that were not part of our national scheme. We published guidance on funding for exceptional costs associated with coronavirus (COVID-19)4 with instructions for how schools could be reimbursed when they incurred additional costs in this way. 4 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-schools The scheme delivered to thousands of schools and families. The supplier, Edenred, has reported that over £384m worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of 16 September. Edenred has also reported that over 20,350 schools had placed orders for the scheme. Funding is available to schools that are unable to meet such additional costs from their existing resources, or which they could only meet by drawing down on reserves and undermining their long-term financial sustainability. Schools are not eligible to make a claim against this fund if they expect to add to their existing historic surpluses in their current financial year (September 2019 to August 2020 for academies and April 2020 to March 2021 for maintained schools). This means schools cannot claim if they began their current financial year with an accumulated historic surplus and expect to increase that surplus this year and thereby finish the year with a higher level of reserves than they started. Schools are eligible for reimbursement where the additional costs associated with coronavirus (COVID-19) would • result in a school having to use historic surpluses • increase the size of a historic deficit • prevent the planned repayment of a historic deficit Conclusion and Recommendation 12: The distribution of food parcels to people who were Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) and without other means of support was a valuable way of ensuring that those people had access to basic foodstuffs. We accept that many of the complaints about the contents of parcels were likely to relate to the early food parcels made from the emergency bulk food offer from Government to local authorities. Once the centralised system was in place, it appeared to operate very well. However, if the Government repeats such an endeavour in future, such as during a second wave of COVID-19, it should make greater efforts to ensure that nutrition and dietary needs are given higher priority from the start.