All eyes were on Bradford this week where Daniel Zeichner, minister for food security and rural affairs, launched the government’s new food strategy for England – the second in the space of just three years.

Unlike the Conservative government’s listless 2022 effort, Labour’s strategy has received widespread praise from across the spectrum of stakeholder opinion – from trade organisations to campaign groups. The Food and Drink Federation welcomed the document’s “holistic view” of the factors affecting the sector, while Sustain described its publication as a “milestone moment”.

The first thing to note is this is not a strategy in the conventional sense; it contains no new policy announcements nor implementation plans. What we have instead is a high-level vision of what the future UK food system looks like and ten priority outcomes for how that vision will be achieved.

Tonally, the document is reminiscent of last year’s Northern Ireland Food Strategy Framework which sketched out an ambition for a transformational shift in how food is produced and sold in the country. Like the Northern Irish document, its English counterpart recognises the need for a more coordinated and coherent approach to food issues across the whole of government and the four home nations – acknowledgement that Defra alone does not control the levers needed to deliver system-wide change. The need for proper alignment with associated areas of work like the Land Use Framework, Environment Improvement Plan, Food and Farming Decarbonisation Plan and Circular Economy Strategy is identified as critical; sensibly so given how joined-up policy making has historically proven elusive where food is concerned.

The government also ventures where previous food strategies have been scared to tread by confronting head-on the negative incentives and feedback loops that drive issues like diet-related ill health and environmental degradation. It cites the example of the ‘junk food cycle’, coined by Henry Dimbleby in his independent food strategy, which describes how our appetite for energy dense foods high in sugar and fat creates strong commercial incentives to produce this type of unhealthy food. The government says its long-term aspiration is to flip this on its head and develop a ‘good food cycle’ which produces healthier and more environmentally sustainable food for everyone.

For that to happen those 10 cross-cutting outcomes will need to be delivered. They are grouped under four categories: healthier and more affordable food, good growth, sustainable and resilient supply, and vibrant food cultures.

The question on everyone’s lips is, what comes next? The lack of new policy measures came as a disappointment to some commentators; Dimbleby himself praised the “proper ambition” but cautioned that “the proof will be in the delivery”. Some key policies, like mandatory reporting of healthier foods sales and an extension of free school meals, have already been announced. “Other policy areas and strategies that will be essential to delivery of the food strategy outcomes are still under development, and all will continue to evolve”, the document notes, adding that “the delivery of the outcomes will be subject to agreement of metrics and indicators to support each of them”. In other words: ‘don’t fret, we’re working on it’.

Anna Taylor, executive director at The Food Foundation, who has been close to the process, wrote on social media that the paper is “just the beginning”. But The Grocer’s revelation that plans for the government to publish a food white paper in 2026 were pulled from the final version of the document will raise concerns that those key agents of systemic change – Number 10 and HM Treasury – are not fully signed up to Zeichner’s vision.

We’ll delve further into the food strategy next week, but in this week’s other news:

• Parents are calling for the government to enforce the School Food Standards in every school in England. More.
• Farmers have been warned they could be breaking the law by rearing fast-growing breeds of chicken. More.
• Extreme weather is now the norm for the UK as a result of climate change. More.