Opinion: Food seasonality involves anticipation, not inconvenience

Walk into a supermarket today and you can buy almost anything you fancy. Strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, asparagus – take your pick. Somewhere along the way, we have engineered the seasons off the shelves. The trouble is, we haven’t engineered them out of farming.

Modern food has made life incredibly easy for the consumer. We can have almost anything we want, whenever we want it, and constant availability has become normal. The food system has become so good at providing choice that it has also removed much of our understanding of how food is produced.

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There was once an anticipation attached to seasonal food. The first British strawberries, new potatoes, asparagus, apples and blackberries all had their moment, and they tasted better for being waited for.

Now we expect the same choice regardless of the month, as though food production operates independently of the weather outside. Farming, of course, cannot do that.

Agriculture remains completely tied to the seasons, while the consumer has become increasingly protected from them.

Imports will always have a place. The problem is that filling genuine gaps has turned into maintaining an expectation that everything should be available all of the time.

We have become so accustomed to permanent abundance that we barely question what it takes to provide it, or how dependent it makes us on production elsewhere. That needs to change. Food security should be treated as part of our national resilience.

Britain is not self-sufficient in food, yet we continue to build consumer expectations around endless choice, rather than making the most of what British agriculture can produce and when.

A country that loses its capacity to feed itself becomes increasingly dependent on circumstances beyond its control.

Supermarkets have a major role to play. British produce should not simply occupy a space on a shelf alongside an imported equivalent.

When something is in British season, shout about it. Make it obvious. Tell shoppers why it is there, where it has come from and why now is the best time to eat it.

Seasonality should become part of how we talk about food again, rather than something consumers need to actively seek out.

Consumers need to become comfortable with waiting, too. There is nothing wrong with not being able to buy everything we fancy every week of the year.

Eating seasonally does not mean going without; it means changing what we eat according to what our own land can produce. There should be value in anticipation rather than seeing it as an inconvenience.

Supporting domestic production, protecting productive farmland and ensuring farming remains economically viable are fundamental to our national resilience.

We cannot expect British agriculture to maintain our ability to produce food while becoming increasingly comfortable sourcing it elsewhere. Once domestic production capacity is lost, rebuilding it is far harder than protecting it in the first place.

We do not need to abandon imports or tell people what they can put in their shopping baskets. We need to rebalance what we value. British food in British season should be the first choice, and retailers, the wider food industry and consumers all have a part to play in making that happen.

Farming cannot ignore the seasons, however convenient we make food for the consumer. Our food system should stop pretending that it can. Food should have a season again, and we need to learn to wait for it.