I had lunch today with someone who had so much energy and drive she made me feel quite lazy. Her name was Alexia Robinson and she is the founder and organiser of British Food Fortnight, which runs from September 20-October 5, Alexia is a bit of a one woman human dynamo. Now in its seventh year, British Food Fortnight has grown into an impressive national promotion for all that's great about British agriculture and food thanks to Alexia's enthusiasm.
Every year, more and more shops, pubs and restaurants take part, all enjoying the commercial benefits that participation brings. Over a 1000 independent shops, 200 medium sized retailers, five major supermarkets, five of the largest food service organisations and four major pub groups regularly run promotions. BFF's website www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk receives 5.8m hits and media coverage is seen or heard over 300 million times during the year,.
It would be easy to knock an event like this organised by a one women operation that lasts just two weeks and has virtually zilch funding. But it's a start at trying to communicate positive generic messages to the consumer about British food by mobilising communities to use BFF resources and it is influencing at various levels. Alexia's campaign includes retail, catering, education and a media programme. In schools alone, she is encouraging children to learn to cook with British food and inviting volunteer, professional chefs from around the country to get stuck into the classroom and educate. One of her sponsors Kenwood is even supplying kitchen and cooking equipment for schools that get involved, which is ironic as Kenwood is no longer a British owned company, it's Italian.
BFF has good support from a few isolated British farming organisations and an army of passionate individuals like FW Farmer of the Year John Geldard but, she would hate me for saying this, the scheme is not well supported by British agriculture. We have to ask ourselves why? In fact, retailers, caterers and schools back BFF better than British farmers.
Isn't it about time we had a more coherent plan to promote British farming and food better to the public? Rather than relying on the goodwill and enthusiasm of a few people, wouldn't it be so much more effective if we had a national campaign that rolled out through the year and marketed a fresh, dynamic image? This takes money and organisation but we have all this in the form of the AHDB (the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) that oversees all the levy groups. It might take some bashing of heads to get agreement on a way forward particularly as there's so many factions involved, but where there's a will, there is usually a way.
Where efforts have been made in the past, such as the tv ad campaign with Beefy and Lamby, it seems to have delivered big benefits to the meat sector. British Food Fortnight does a great job given its size and scale but a bigger concerted effort is required. What do you think?