Jay Rayner on Brexit & the food crisis

Jay Rayner might be best known for his bitingly funny weekly restaurant reviews in the Observer.

But he also produces eloquent, insightful writing on the workings of the wider food industry; as he did in his 2013 book "A Greedy Man in a Hungry World" which, by the way, comes highly recommended by hep.

In a recent piece for the Guardian he looks at how Brexit is impacting the British food industry in general, and growers of fruit & veg as well as meat & dairy producers in particular.

It is an industry which is very much dependent on a skilled workforce comprised, to a good extent, of migrant workers from within the EU, primarily Bulgaria and Romania. (the numbers range between 20 and 60% in different sub-sectors of agriculture and food processing.

These workers, many of which return to the same UK farms every year or have settled permanently in the UK, have become indispensable for British agriculture.

Rayner provides an insightful and highly readable account of the current state of the industry and how employers and foreign workers alike are faced with insecurities and uncertainties.

Ultimately, he claims, some parts of the British food industry may come to a complete standstill, if the questions invoked by Brexit are not properly addressed.

Read the entire piece here!

Picture above by Michael Kubiena