Trends in Global Food Consumption and Availability

Investigating food security in the UK

The United Kingdom provides a case study of how food consumption and availability change over time. These are related, but they are not the same thing. Availability concerns the food supplied by farms, food producers and imports. Consumption concerns what people actually eat.

A country can have well-stocked shops while some households struggle to afford food. Investigating food security therefore means considering both national supplies and household diets, rather than relying on one headline statistic.

How UK food availability has changed

During the Second World War, German attacks on shipping disrupted food imports to the UK. The government rationed foods including meat, eggs, cheese, butter and sugar to distribute limited supplies more fairly. This illustrates how disruption to trade can reduce availability even when demand remains high.

After the war, farming became more intensive and domestic production increased. UK cereal imports fell from around 70% of cereal supplies in the 1940s to around 20% in the 1980s. This reduced dependence on imported cereals, although it did not remove the need for food imports generally.

Today, UK food supplies combine domestic production with international trade. Imports provide foods that cannot easily be grown commercially in the UK, such as bananas and citrus fruits, and help meet demand for seasonal produce throughout the year. A variety of overseas suppliers can spread risk, but dependence on a small number of suppliers can make particular foods vulnerable to disruption.

Measuring availability over time

Defra uses the production-to-supply ratio as a broad measure of self-sufficiency. It compares the farmgate value of UK raw food production with the value of raw food available for human consumption. Because it is a value-based measure that includes the effects of trade, it is not simply the percentage of food on people's plates that was grown in the UK.

For all food, this ratio increased slightly from 61% in 2021 to 62% in 2023. This suggests broadly stable national self-sufficiency rather than a major change. However, an overall figure can conceal differences between food groups.

Data for Changing UK self-sufficiency in fresh produce

For fresh vegetables, the ratio fell from 57% in 2021 to 53% in 2023: a decrease of four percentage points. For fresh fruit, it rose from 15% to 17%, then fell to 16%. Fruit therefore shows a fluctuation rather than a continuous increase across these three years.

The longer-term picture is different: the fresh-fruit ratio increased from 8% in 2003 to 16% in 2023. It doubled, but remained low. UK climate, seasonality and consumer preferences help explain why imported fruit continues to be important.

A stable overall ratio also does not mean harvests are stable. UK cereal production fell from 25.5 million tonnes in 2019 to 19.0 million tonnes in 2020, largely because of bad weather. Imports can help compensate for a poor domestic harvest, showing why domestic production and trade should be considered together.

Investigating changing consumption

Defra's Family Food data records food purchases, providing an indicator of changing diets. Weekly milk purchases, including non-dairy alternatives, fell from 2,978 ml per person in 1974 to 1,635 ml in 2021/22. That is a reduction of about 45.1%. Meanwhile, purchases of ready meals and convenience meat increased over the same period. The change is therefore not just about quantity: the types of food bought have also changed.

Short-term events can interrupt a longer-term trend. Household vegetable purchases have generally declined since 1978, when they averaged 1,247 g per person per week. Purchases rose to 1,275 g in 2020/21, during the pandemic, before falling to 1,079 g in 2021/22. Comparing only the pandemic peak with the following year would miss the longer-term pattern.

More recently, purchases of food eaten at home fell across all main food categories between the financial years ending in 2020 and 2023. Fish purchases fell by 15.1%, milk by 12.2% and fruit by 12.1%. These figures describe purchases, not a direct measurement of everything people ate.

Turning statistics into a judgement

Begin by checking the dates, geographical coverage, units and definition of each indicator. Compare like with like: millilitres of milk cannot be directly compared with grams of vegetables. Identify the overall direction, support it with figures, and then look for interruptions or differences between food groups.

Finally, consider what the evidence can establish. Purchase records include food that may be thrown away and may cover only food eaten at home. National averages hide differences between households. Prices and income can limit access to fruit and vegetables even when supplies are available.

The UK evidence suggests broadly stable overall self-sufficiency alongside changing diets and substantial reliance on imports for some foods. It does not, by itself, prove that every household has reliable access to a nutritious diet.