Food groups warn on climate resilience

Tesco, Aldi, and more than 100 food sector organisations have called for stronger action to protect UK food security as climate change, supply chain fragility, and cost pressure expose the country to future shocks.

The group has written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham warning that the next food shock is not a question of if, but when. The intervention brings together major retailers, suppliers, campaigners, and industry organisations around the need for a more resilient food system.

The letter calls for legislation and policy action to strengthen food security, with climate change treated as a present operational risk rather than a distant environmental concern. Extreme weather, crop damage, water stress, supply disruption, and volatile commodity markets are already affecting food production and pricing.

Aldi is among the retailers backing the call. The supermarket sector has direct exposure to food security because retailers sit between farmers, suppliers, logistics providers, households, and government policy. When supply tightens, costs rise quickly and choices narrow for consumers.

The intervention follows a period of repeated disruption across the food system. Drought, flooding, energy cost spikes, labour shortages, global commodity shocks, conflict, and trade friction have all affected availability and price. Climate change adds a structural pressure that cannot be managed through short term procurement alone.

Supermarket resilience depends on more than buying power. It requires long term supplier relationships, investment in domestic production, responsible water use, logistics flexibility, risk sharing, and clearer visibility across supply chains. Retailers also have to balance resilience with affordability at a time when households remain sensitive to price increases.

Farmers and food producers face the sharpest operational exposure. Weather volatility can affect yields, crop quality, animal health, storage, and input costs. Investment in adaptation — from irrigation and soil health to energy efficiency and protected growing — requires capital that many producers struggle to access when margins are thin.

The UK’s food system also has a strategic vulnerability because domestic production, imports, processing, storage, labour, and distribution are tightly connected. A shock in one area can quickly move through the chain. Higher fuel costs increase freight prices. Poor harvests raise commodity costs. Water restrictions affect production. Border disruption can delay perishable goods.

Food security has therefore become a board level issue for retailers, manufacturers, hospitality groups, logistics companies, and investors. It affects not only ESG reporting, but product availability, pricing strategy, margin management, insurance, supplier finance, and consumer trust.

The call also sits within a wider reassessment of supply chain resilience. During the pandemic and later energy shocks, many companies learned that lean inventories and low cost sourcing can leave little room for disruption. Food supply chains are especially exposed because products are perishable, season dependent, and vulnerable to biological and climate conditions.

Policy choices will shape the market. Planning rules, nature recovery, water infrastructure, farming incentives, trade agreements, labour policy, energy costs, and procurement standards all affect the resilience of the food system. Companies can change supplier strategies, but government controls many of the enabling conditions for investment.

The environmental dimension is equally complex. Food production contributes to emissions and nature loss, while also being exposed to the consequences. Companies must reduce environmental impact while maintaining output and affordability. That requires more precise data, better land use planning, and stronger collaboration between retailers, producers, finance, and policymakers.

The immediate commercial task is to turn risk awareness into practical adaptation. That may include diversifying sourcing regions, supporting farmers with longer contracts, investing in climate resilient crops, reducing waste, improving cold chain efficiency, and using data to anticipate shortages earlier.

The letter places pressure on the new government to treat food security as economic infrastructure. The sector is arguing that resilience cannot be left to individual companies when the risks are systemic. Policy will need to support investment before another shock forces more expensive action.