Food insecurity isn’t an accident – it’s the result of market concentration and political priorities. To understand who is responsible, we need to look beyond the supermarket checkout.
Why is it that in one of the richest countries in the world, one in nine households are struggling to afford basic food? No longer emergency measures, Britain’s food banks now outnumber McDonald’s restaurants. Embedded in our communities, they are relied upon by families, pensioners, and even those in full-time employment.
Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, where I work, provides one of the most comprehensive pictures of food insecurity, tracking food bank use since 2014. In the last decade the city has seen a 400% increase in the number of food parcels provided and half of those seeking food support do so on an ongoing basis. But this is the tip of the iceberg. National surveys like Hunger in the UK 2025 show that over half those who experience hunger do not seek food support and instead go without essentials.
According to the Food Foundation’s Broken Plate Report 2025, to afford a healthy diet, the poorest fifth of the population would need to spend almost half of their disposable income on food, rising to 70% for those households with children. Food prices are already 38% higher than pre-Covid levels and food inflation is predicted to rise to 10% this year as a result of the US and Israel war on Iran. There may be a lag, but as sure as President Trump will send a midnight ‘post’ and someone will make a very well-timed trade, this will hit us hard!
Food insecurity is often framed by politicians as a problem of low incomes, personal choices or temporary shocks like wars, pandemics and climate change. While these factors do affect households, these explanations ignore the deeper, systemic issues.
Feeding the market, not the people
Like spiders in a web, a number of powerful corporations lie at the heart of the global food system. Firms you’ve probably never heard of – ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus etc. – dominate everything from seeds and fertilisers to grain trading and distribution. Rarely visible to us, they control what we eat and how much we pay. When crises hit, these industry giants pass on rising costs to farmers and consumers, while protecting their own margins. Risk is pushed downward; profit is retained at the top.
In times of turbulence, investors turn to commodity markets, betting on rising prices and amplifying volatility. Scarcity creates opportunities to get rich. But for struggling households, putting dinner on the table gets harder.
A fragile system exposed by war
When the conflict in Ukraine disrupted one of the world’s most important grain-producing regions, it sent shockwaves through global supply chains. But the war didn’t create a fragile system – it exposed one. Dependent on a few key regions and tightly coupled supply chains, the food system was always vulnerable. The war simply revealed its lack of resilience.
The escalating conflict with Iran has exposed another critical dependency: energy. Modern agriculture is deeply reliant on fossil fuels – not just for transport, but for fertiliser production. A fifth of world crude oil and a third of the world’s fertilisers passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions here affect everything from crop yields to your weekly food bill. Yet geopolitical forces alone do not explain why the impact is felt so acutely in the UK. That requires us to look closer to home.
When borders bite
The decision to leave the European Union fundamentally altered Britain’s trading relationships. New frictions at borders, increased bureaucracy, and labour shortages in agriculture and food processing have all made things less efficient. For a country that imports 40% of its food, any disruption to trade flows has immediate consequences. While Brexit did not cause global food prices to rise, it has reduced the UK’s ‘shock absorbers’ that once cushioned it against supply disruptions.
Alongside this, domestic policy choices have exacerbated household food insecurity. Wages have not kept pace with inflation. Welfare support has failed to reflect the real cost of living. Housing costs consume a growing share of household income, leaving less for essentials like food. Rising food prices are not just an economic issue but a social one, falling hardest on those already under pressure.
And yet, the narrative often shifts responsibility away from these structural causes. Individuals are told to budget better, to make different choices. But research shows food insecurity is primarily income-driven. Personal responsibility pales in comparison to systemic failure.
Who is to blame?
What emerges from all this is not a single point of blame, but a chain of pressures. Geopolitical crises disrupt supply, energy shocks raise costs, market speculation fuels volatility, agribusiness protects profit, and political decisions determine who bears the burden.
Food insecurity in Britain is not inevitable. It is the result of choices. Who is to blame? Not one actor, but a system that allows the most basic human need to be shaped by profit, power, and political will.
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