Farming Downing Street food summit decried as 'PR stunt'

Rishi Sunak's Downing Street food summit has been described as "empty" by industry representatives, who rounded on the prime minister for failing to discuss soaring inflation or set out measures to safeguard British food production.

- Joanna Partridge, Sarah Butler

The Farm to Fork summit, the first meeting of its kind, brought together farmers, food producers and some of Britain's largest supermarkets.

One representative of a trade body that attended described it as an "empty meeting" with no action on price or inflation discussed. "It was there for the Tories to show they are supporting farmers," they said.

Another attender said the summit elicited a "low-key response" from those present because it "did not touch the fundamental problems of food price inflation". They said: "If you are not doing something about.

the cost of living, cost of production, access to labour and affordability of food then you are never going to fix the overall problem." The summit had been expected to tackle food price inflation, fairness within the supply chain and helping farmers to invest in domestic production, but there were no subsequent announcements on those issues.

Ministers offered no commitments in response to a call by the National Farmers' Union (NFU) to stop Britain's self-sufficiency in food slipping below its current level of 60%.