Food production and security became top of the agenda at a 'food summit' at 10 Downing Street this week as farming onions, supermarket bosses and politicians met to thrash out a food policy for the nation.

Farming's attendees at the 70-strong event said that there was an 'openness and realisation that food price had been too low for too long', but admitted that there were no firm commitments from the Government on really tackling food shortages on supermarket shelves.

The meeting was addressed by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before senior cabinet secretaries chaired working groups with industry representatives. The summit was the first of its kind following a request from NFU England in 2022 and brought attendees from across the food sector, including Kaleb Cooper, from TV show, Clarkson’s Farm.

Prior to the meeting, farming sector representatives were worried they were being invited to the London talks that would centre on driving down the cost of food. The UK Government is coming under increasing pressure to take action, with staple foods such as supermarket own label products jumping 25% in price in the last year. But making the price of groceries cheaper was not the focus of the meeting, according to some of those at the meeting.

“The feeling that we need to hammer down food prices did not come across today,” explained NFUS president, Martin Kennedy, who was at the meeting. “Many were worried it would be an attack on farmgate prices but that didn’t happen. I was also concerned that the event was essentially a photoshoot for the UK government to make everyone think they were listening – but we have to welcome the meeting, it is the first one they have held in recent times.

“I asked Government to make the meeting an annual one, as having it as a once off will achieve little. Let's hold a summit every year and see what positive changes we can make to the farming and food sector. The biggest win is everyone is talking about food. If people talk about it more, then people will start thinking where food comes from.”

When asked how to tackle food inflation, Ken Murphy, supermarket giant Tesco's CEO, told ITV the answer was to work together with producers and governments to make life easier. Meanwhile, NFU England president, Minette Batters, said the high prices being paid by consumers were not coming back to farmers and growers. Prior to the meeting, the UK Government announced an enquiry into egg prices and a £30m funding pot for technology in the fruit and veg sector.

Another attendee, chief executive of the NBA, Neil Shand, told The SF: "The Government certainly seemed to be in listening mode. They are more interested in resilient food supplies and maintaining the level of food production we have now than necessarily cutting the price for consumers. I believe the fragility of our supply chains is finally being understood by the regular consumer."

Mr Shand proposed the idea of a food Tsar to Defra Minister Theresa Coffey. He said: "We need someone to look at food resilience, security and self-sufficiency at a UK level. We need joined up thinking and I explained to ministers that if we take 100,000 cows out of Scotland then we will just be putting 100,000 cows into Brazil."

Meanwhile, Richard Griffiths, the chief executive of the British Poultry Council, who attended the meeting welcomed promises on future trade deals but called for 'more attention on how we and the government promote British food'.