What we have achieved

The first national campaign dedicated to promoting British food.

The first national celebration of British food, British Food Fortnight, which is now one of the most established awareness events on the nation’s calendar. Acclaimed as ‘one of the highest profile awareness weeks’ by Marketing magazine.

The Love British Food brand is one of the most established food campaigns on the national calendar and has been used to drive sales and consumer awareness in major retailers and food service organisations (Tesco, SPAR, Budgens, Sodexo and The National Trust to name a few).

Our activities have been embraced by so many sectors: schools, hospitals, independent retailers, major supermarkets, care homes, pubs, restaurants, hotels, major food service organisations, universities, visitor attractions, Sure Start Childrens’ Centres, markets, sports venues, villages, towns, cities…even a zoo has taken part! 

Our activities have attracted celebrity support: Raymond Blanc, Damien Lewis, Martin Clunes, Jonathan Ross, the Hairy Bikers, Candice Brown, Liz Earle, Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein, Prue Leith, Alex James, Greg Wallace, Matt Baker, Alex Hollywood, Lizzie Carr, Chris Bavin, Phil Howard, Julia Bradbury and Adam Henson.

Putting the Ooo back into food: our educational programme teaching children about food. We published the first guide to teaching children about food within the National Curriculum; followed by the first guide to teaching children how to cook within the curriculum. Described as a ‘wonderful resource’ by The Times Educational Supplement and endorsed by the Department for Education and the Department of Health; the first time both Government departments have collaborated on a joint food education project. The programme has provided educational materials for 30,000 schools and, with the support of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, has run many high profile national competitions for schools.

Founded the largest volunteer movement educating young people about food with many chef associations and food service organisations committing to send their chefs into schools during British Food Fortnight to teach children about food.

As a result of our activities, British Food Fortnight is now an established date on the school calendar. Hundreds of schools have taken part over the years.

The first organisation to run targeted promotions of British food in shops, pubs and restaurants resulting in increased sales of British food in hundreds of retail and catering outlets. Love British Food is recognised as a proven catalyst in encouraging retailers and caterers to source more British food.

In the retail sector, the brand is proven to deliver sales increases in the major supermarkets and small independents. For example, Love British Food promotions in one participating supermarket doubled sales in real terms and sold out most days. In the independent sector the results have been astonishing with some small retailers reporting sales increases of £1,000 a week. 

In the food service sector, sales increases of 65%+ have been reported with sales of some product lines promoted through the Love British Food brand increasing by 1,000%.

We sit on the Public Sector Catering Industry Leaders Group (PSC100); the only food and farming representative to sit on this group. Love British Food has a regular editorial feature in the Public Sector Catering magazine. We have fielded speakers at all the major public sector catering conferences.

Held two major Food Service Summits in central London to discuss opportunities for British food to be first supplier of choice in food service. Secretary of State Michael Gove keynote speaker.

We work with the Hospital Caterers Association and have made inroads into achieving greater sourcing of British food in hospitals. We have worked with the Chair of the Hospital Food Review to produce a series of recommendations on changes that could be made to help hospitals source more local and British food. We have taken the Head of NHS Improvement to see local sourcing in action in order to make sure that British food sourcing is part of their considerations. We are working with NHS Supply: Food to team dairy farms with their local hospitals.

We have challenged a top London restaurant to run a three course menu on the per head budget used by the NHS to feed patients. It was possible!

Our work in the Care Home sector has brought British food menus and memorable food activities to the elderly in hundreds of care homes. We work closely with the National Association of Care Catering at a national and regional level.

We work with the University Caterers Association to make food education a core part of Fresher’s Week activities; and with them we have developed advice for students on how to eat healthily on a budget.

We work with the Local Authority Caterers Association and many school catering providers to encourage schools to prioritise British on their menus and to run promotions that educate pupils about the joys of the food on their doorstep. Love British Food promotions have increased the uptake of school meals by 20 - 50% and have been embraced by many county-wide school catering services. 

We have developed a Love Welsh Food brand working with the Welsh Local Government to inspire local food menu promotions in Welsh local authority schools. Five local authorities taking part so far.

We have worked with the National Trust and the Youth Hostel Association to make British and local food central to visitor attractions.

We work with the National Association of British Market Authorities to promote British food with their traders at markets across the land.

We have run a Family Feast celebration in 20 Sure Start Children’s Centres in some of the most deprived areas of the country. We teamed each centre with a local chef and retailer who worked with the parents to prepare a magnificent feast for the community using each centre.

Created a brand specifically for the London Olympics: Love British Food 2012 to encourage retailers and caterers to run British food promotions and capitalise on the patriotic fervour. The brand was used by 11 of the biggest food service organisation in the country which all used it to drive sales promotions during the Games; Tesco and SPAR used it to drive promotions (it increased sales by 50% in Tesco’s instore cafes); and many pub groups carried the brand as their main 2012 promotion.

By invitation of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, we organised Cook for The Queen at Buckingham Palace to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee. Hundreds of schools, from the Shetland Isles to Penzance, competed to come to the Palace and cook a Love British Food celebratory tea for Her Majesty.

Organised the inaugural National Harvest Service at Westminster Abbey in 2013, the first harvest service to be held in the Abbey in nearly half a century. 500 children, from schools, guide and scout groups, applied to attend through a Harvest Lottery competition launched by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. The whole nave was lined with the children’s home-grown produce. The Bishop of London gave the address; Damien Lewis and Martin Clunes did readings; all the food was carried away on a Fuller’s Brewery draft and distributed to a food bank; and the wonderful day was the main photograph on both The Times and Telegraph the following day.

Created a National Harvest Torch that, since 2013, has travelled the country from London to Birmingham to Lincoln to Pembrokeshire to Chelmsford to Ely to Wells and is now on its way to Peterborough. 

We have put Love British Food on the desk of five Secretaries of State: Hilary Benn, Owen Paterson, Liz Truss, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove.

We have been part of a Faith in Food gathering in Parliament where leaders all the major faiths gathered to discuss food as a means of bringing people of different faiths together.

We have had media partnerships with The Telegraph, Times, Independent and Mirror Group.  We have contributed editorial and comment pieces in nearly every major trade title. 

In the days when print, radio and television coverage was the main PR armoury, our media campaign sustained an audience reach of 300 million every year. We have enjoyed front page coverage in national newspapers, mentions in leader columns, a story line on The Archers and the dear late Terry Wogan exclaiming on his radio show “I wish every fortnight was British Food Fortnight”.

We run a national social media campaign #BritishFoodisGreat featuring farmers as the face of British food.

We have run numerous fun competitions to engage the consumer including the Face of British Food Fortnight; Britain’s Favourite Food Spot; and Britain’s Long Lost Food.

We have established an annual competition to find the most imaginative and inclusive community celebration of British food. Every year the competition involves hundreds of communities and hundreds of thousands of people in celebrating the food from their local area. The judges are led by Raymond Blanc and Liz Earle. Winners have come from large and small communities: a Cheshire village, the cities of Peterborough and Bath, the market town of Emsworth, the schools of Hampshire.

We have won a number of awards over the years: CLA Food and Farming Award 2009, Countryside Alliance Rural Contribution Award 2005, Pig and Poultry Marketing Awards 2012, nominated for NFU Farming Champion and also Farming Personality of the Year 2004, coming third to David Handy, Famers for Action and Ben Gill, outgoing NFU President and ‘Women of the Year’ in 2013.