Feeding Britain: Can Our Best Food Producers Deliver?

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheila Dillon and this year’s head judge of the BBC Food and Farming Awards, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, hit the road to meet the finalists in the Best Food Producer category. From sourdough pioneers Aidan Monks and Catherine Connor at Lovingly Artisan in Kendal, and regenerative grower Calixta Killander at Flourish Produce in Cambridgeshire, to cheese champions Andy and Kathy Swinscoe at The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire — they explore how these exceptional producers might hold clues to a more resilient food future. Inspired by Professor Tim Lang’s recent report, Just in Case: narrowing the UK civil food resilience gap, the episode asks: could these small but significant businesses be part of the solution to Britain’s food security crisis?

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron.
0:10.5	Evil genius.
0:11.6	He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it.
0:15.5	That's like hiding at your own funeral.
0:17.1	Yeah, a bit great gig.
0:18.6	I'm Russell Kane.
0:19.6	Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius.
0:24.1	Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius.
0:26.4	It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:29.4	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:34.9	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:38.6	What does the UK need to do to make itself more food secure, as they say,
0:44.7	to ensure that we can all still eat in a future that looks increasingly dicey
0:50.0	in the conflicts, floods, droughts, pandemics that might be coming our way.
0:56.0	Well, let me tell you three stories.
0:58.2	Three stories about three food producers,
1:01.4	the finalists in this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards.
1:05.9	The stories came out of your nominations,
1:08.5	and the judging trip I then made with the chef TV star campaigner
1:12.9	and head of judges Hugh Fernley Whittingstall beginning in Yorkshire going northwest to Cumbria
1:19.4	and then south to Cambridgeshire it was a trip full of pleasures but the backdrop was always there
	...

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