Food Thinkers Webinar July 2025: Professor Greta Defeyter

Jul 2, 2025 | Events

Young girl holds banana like a telephone whilst eating

Food Thinkers Webinar July 2025 with Professor Greta Defeyter

2nd July 2025

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Food Thinkers: Informing and supporting the UK Government’s national roll out and implementation of the new school breakfast club programme in England with Professor Greta Defeyter, Northumbria University

The Department for Education (DfE) has recently announced a new school breakfast club programme that will be rolled out across all state-funded primary schools in England. The government’s objective is for the new national breakfast club programme to build on existing school provision and contribute to the full wraparound childcare offer, with a guarantee of 30 minutes free childcare and a free breakfast for pupils, immediately preceding the start of the school day.  In this webinar, Prof Defeyter presented the learning outcomes from a series of co-designed workshops involving key stakeholders and teaching staff who deliver school breakfast clubs, as well as parents and pupils. The aim of these co-designed workshops was to co-produce a new programme framework that informs planning, implementation, and delivery of DfE’s new school breakfast programme. The results will help meet the needs of schools, parents, and pupils at both a national and local level and provide added value for wellbeing and education. This presentation ended by showing that different models of school breakfast and childcare delivery can be consolidated into a high level, overarching national policy framework that has been underpinned by research and practice.

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June 2025 Food Thinkers webinar with Stuart Gillespie

Jun 25, 2025 | Events

Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet – with Dr Stuart Gillespie

Tuesday 24 June 2025

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Drawing on his book, Stuart shines a light on the historical evolution of the global food system – from colonial times, through to the last half-century of progressive corporate capture. He unpacks the ways in which growing markets and the financial power of a handful of companies have been used to leverage political and epistemic power to lock in their dominance. Moving to what can be done to alter the status quo, he draws on the growing body of evidence and experience from around the world to show how things can be turned around and how a better food system, with people and planet at its heart, can be built. 

Dr Stuart Gillespie has four decades of experience in food, nutrition and health policy, programming and research since his first position as nutrition coordinator in a project in southern India (1984-86). After acquiring a PhD in Human Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1988, he spent four years with the World Health Organisation in Geneva, two years with UNICEF in India and four years as a freelance consultant. He joined the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in 1999, where he led several initiatives, including a consortium on the double burden of malnutrition, the Regional Network on AIDS, Livelihoods and Food Security (RENEWAL), Transform Nutrition, the Stories of Change initiative and a flagship of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) programme. He has around 200 publications, including 10 books. 

City St George’s Food Policy Symposium 2025

May 15, 2025 | Events

People sitting in rows in a lecture hall

Food Policy Symposium 2025: Professional cookery – the missing ingredient for food systems transformation

15th May 2025

Event summary

On Thursday 15th May approximately 250 chefs, academics, students, policymakers and representatives from across the food industry came together for the day to explore how professional cookery can be leveraged to facilitate food systems change. Keynote speaker Thomasina Miers OBE drew on her experience of building the restaurant chain Wahaca to advocate for more sustainable food practices in hospitality. Baroness Joan Walmsley, Chair of the House of Lords Food Diet and Obesity Committee 2024 brought a policy angle to the discussions advocating for stronger policy action. In the morning plenary session, an international panel of experts discussed why we need to build capacity for professional cooks in food systems topics, later another expert panel debated how food policy can drive positive change in professional cookery for healthier, more sustainable food systems. Emeritus Professor Martin Caraher provided a roundup of the day’s discussions. A series of specially curated workshops explored different aspects of the topic; from optimising training pathways and public procurement to chefs as sustainable and healthy diet leaders. A poster exhibition also provided additional points of discussion throughout the day. Enormous thanks also go to the Worshipful Company of Cooks for making these events possible.

You can find the event details here and a summary of the event here. 

presentation with person explaining
Looking down the aisle of a lecture hall
Classroom with person writing on board in the front
Thomasina Myers presenting with a slide show behind her
Two men looking at an academic poster
Delegates at the 2025 Food Policy Symposium

Food Thinkers April 2025 – Kevin Morgan

Apr 30, 2025 | Events

Serving the Public: the good food revolution in schools, hospitals and prisons 

 

Wednesday 30 April 2025

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Professor Kevin Morgan highlighted key food policy issues from his new book – Serving the Public. His book addresses the challenges of public food provisioning in three very different public food systems, drawing on evidence from the UK, Sweden and the US. After providing a short summary of his book, Kevin drew out 2 key food policy issues. Firstly, the scope and limits of public food procurement. Kevin argued that procurement policy will fail unless it is integrated with policies that support the production and consumption of sustainable food. Secondly, highlighted the rise of the Good Food Movement in the UK and its pivotal role in promoting major food policy innovations, such as the Good Food Nation Act in Scotland and Universal Free School Meals in state-funded primary schools in Scotland, Wales and London. 

Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance and Development in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. He has been actively involved as a researcher and a campaigner for good food policies in and beyond the UK. His current food research includes a project on school food reform in the UK under the UKRI programme on Health Inequalities in the Food System and a project on the transformation of public food systems in Sweden, a project led by Lund University and funded by Vinnova, the Swedish Innovation Agency. Kevin is a member of the School Meals Coalition, the aim of which is to ensure that every child in the world has access to a healthy and nutritious meal at school by 2030.

Attendance at City St George’s events is subject to our terms and conditions.

Food Thinkers March 2025 – Carrie Bradshaw

Mar 26, 2025 | Events

Food waste law and regulation 

 

Wednesday 26 March 2025

Headshot of Professor Carrie Bradshaw smiling at the camera
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Dr Carrie Bradshaw, Associate Professor of Law, University of Leeds, provided a wide-ranging overview of food waste law and regulation in the UK. She covered her evaluation of voluntary measures administered by WRAP and the critical role of supply chain regulation. She also outlined legislative options that are ‘on the horizon’ and could be considered for the food strategy currently being developed by the UK government. These options include mandatory food waste reporting; date labelling and packaging; and variable waste charging. As an example of potentially unwelcome legislative interventions to prevent food waste, Carrie concluded with novel findings from her ongoing research on Good Samaritan laws. 

Carrie is an environmental lawyer, with particular interest in waste, climate change (especially mitigation) and environmental liability, together with the relationship between environmental law, tortious liability and corporate responsibility. Her current research examines food waste as a distinct legal and policy problem. As part of this, she was an ESRC-funded Parliamentary Academic Fellow, seconded to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and commissioned to write a major report on food waste. She has advised several government, business and third sector organisations on food waste law and policy, provided oral and written evidence to Parliament, and personally briefed several Parliamentarians. She is an editor of the Environmental Law Review. 

Attendance at City St George’s events is subject to our terms and conditions.

Food Thinkers February 2025 – Paul Behrens

Feb 12, 2025 | Events

Rapid food transformations in a rapidly changing world 

 

Wednesday 12 February 2025

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Climate change’s impacts, including on food systems, have been systemically underestimated. In the face of these impacts there is an urgent need for a rapid food system transformation. The decisions made in the coming years will influence food availability, prices, and ultimately the stability of society this century. In this talk Paul outlined the ways a rapid food system transformation – especially dietary shifts – can not only mitigate environmental impacts but enhance agriculture’s resilience to extreme weather events and shocks. He also delved into ongoing research on the implications of these transformations for the agricultural sector, including changes in farming subsidies, assets, and income streams. Finally, he addressed the current landscape of vested interests actively resisting these changes, highlighting the challenges faced in implementing crucial reforms to our food systems. 

Paul Behrens is British Academy Global Professor at the University of Oxford. His research and writing on climate,energyand foodhave appeared in scientific journals and media outlets such asthe BBC, The Guardian, Thomson Reuters, Politico, Nature Sustainability, Nature Energy, PNAS, Joule, Nature Food, and Nature Communications. He is an editor and author of the interdisciplinary textbook Food and Sustainability (Oxford University Press, 2020). His popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press, 2021) describes humanity’s current trajectory andpossible futuresin paired chapters of pessimism and hope. Paul won International Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2023.

Attendance at City St George’s events is subject to our terms and conditions.