Wales's Secret Ingredient: Lessons from Cymru on the Future of Food

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheila Dillon is joined by four guests who each have a deep connection with Welsh food and farming for a panel discussion recorded at the 2025 Abergavenny Food Festival. Beca Lyne-Pirkis is a food writer and broadcaster; Patrick Holden is an organic farmer and founder of the Sustainable Food Trust; Carwyn Graves is a Welsh food historian and author; and Sue Pritchard leads the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Together, they explore what is currently making Wales’s approach to food distinctive — and what lessons it might offer for the future of food across the UK.

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	Right, you feeling ready? I'm feeling ready.
0:10.8	I'm Amal Rajin. Join me on my new podcast for in-depth conversations with pioneers and
0:16.0	innovators, talking about the trends and ideas that could help shape and change our future.
0:21.5	We are going to be digital citizens of this AI world, whether we like it or not.
0:26.2	From declining birth rates to disinformation online, can they solve the world's biggest challenges?
0:32.0	What I would love to do is go to the transfer and say radically cut the taxes of those with children.
0:37.3	Radical with me, I'm Orjan.
0:39.3	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:41.0	Hello and welcome to the food programme.
0:44.2	I'm Sheila Dillon.
0:45.8	We're always trying on here to focus life's torchbeam on the past to a better future through food.
0:51.6	In this podcast, we're on the case in Wales. Can that country with its
0:57.4	smaller population, its unified pride, its Cardiff Parliament teaches some lessons? Well,
1:04.8	have a listen. See what you think. Good afternoon, Abilgovenny, and thank you for joining us inside the dome tent,
1:13.8	though dome rather undersells the gigantic flower-bedecked canvas that's been set up inside
1:21.2	the walls of the town's grand ruined castle. I'm Sheila Dillon and a presenter of the food program on Radio 4.
1:30.1	And today I'm joined by four characters who are all deeply rooted in Wales.
1:35.9	People whose lives, experience and work are concentrated on bringing changes to this country's
1:41.8	food landscape.
1:43.6	And I'm not being poetic, but for a long time, the grandeur and glory of the Welsh landscape
1:49.7	hasn't been reflected in the way that most food here has been produced.
	...

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