AIBU to think the UK should have a National Food Service again? (Like we basically had in WW2)

[Staybymw]

During WW2 and for years after, the UK did have a kind of National Food Service.
The government controlled prices, ran bakeries, managed rationing, guaranteed flour/milk supplies, and kept basic staples affordable so people didn’t starve. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked.

So with the cost of living crisis now, rising food prices, food banks everywhere, and benefits going up because families literally can’t afford groceries… why don’t we bring back a modern version?

I’m not talking about anything complicated.
I mean basic, no-frills staples produced not for profit:

• bread
• rice
• pasta
• tinned tomatoes
• flour
• oats
• basic cooking oil
• tinned veg / beans

All stuff we can grow or easily manufacture in the UK.

If the government owned the land, the factories, and the distribution, they could:

• create thousands of jobs ( more people paying tax)
• stabilise food prices
• make sure no one goes hungry
• massively reduce the need for benefits to keep rising
• put pressure on supermarkets to stop hiking prices

Other countries already do versions of this:

France controls wheat prices
Japan buys rice from farmers and sells it back at stable prices
Egypt subsidises bread for millions
India has state-run ration shops
Brazil provides government food baskets
Saudi Arabia subsidises milk, flour, staples through state industry

It’s not a wild idea lots of countries see food as a strategic, essential service.

A National Food Service would mean:

• no shareholders to pay
• no profit margin
• steady UK jobs
• cheaper food
• more secure supply chains
• less reliance on private companies
• more tax revenue from the workers it employs

It could help families massively.
Especially those who are working but still struggling, or whose benefits are swallowed by food prices.

Given everything going on, food inflation, child poverty, constant arguments about increasing benefits, would a simple, not-for-profit national food range actually save money in the long run?

Or we could bin the net zero fraud and grow our own food at a much much cheaper cost.

Novel idea, eh?

I don’t think the big supermarkets would pass on the savings. I’m talking about something different.

Basic food manufacture does not employ many people. A large arable farm employs maybe 2 full time. A modern flour mill, a few people at most.
Most agricultural land is privately owned, and it is best left with the farmers who know their land and can get the best from it.
We could have a basic price for flour, rice, veg, oil etc but the supermarkets only make 2% on foods now. The govt couldn't do it any cheaper.
I make my bread, buy a sack of flour from a mill every 5 months. A large loaf of good quality bread costs me about 95p. A litre of oil £1.50. Seasonal veg are cheap. We already have low food prices apart from cheese, meat and fish but they are costly to produce

Teaching people to cook, and how not to waste food would be better. We throw 30% of our food away.

It’s really not a good idea to let a government run the food supply.

See the starvation from any communist regime that’s ever existed. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ethiopia.

The way you casually describe it as nothing that a government should control food supplied is pretty horrifying but at least helps me understand how communism happens so easily.

So would your food scheme replace benefits or be in addition to benefits? Because we can't afford the benefit system we have, add this scheme on top and yet more cost to the public purse. Where's all the money coming from?

we need to educate many people of this country how to cook and prepare basic meals. That may be an unpopular idea but back in WWII people learned how to do more with absolutely bugger all. There was food rationing and people had to get on with it, they had no other choice but to turn their garden into an allotment.

They wouldn’t be running the food supply just have their own branded basic items. This would be along side what ever supermarkets produce.

Add in Bengal and Ireland to that. It didn't just happen in communist regimes. I think you should have a look at the history of the British Empire if you want to look at the government using starvation as state policy.

Basic food in this country is really cheap though. The things you’ve listed, plus some other basics and ingredients to make meals, you can get them for these prices, loaf of bread £1, big bag of oats £1, 1kg rice 52p, pasta 50p, tinned tomatoes 40p, baked beans 50p, carrots 55p, big bag of potatoes £1, lentils 50p. Basic food isn’t expensive, it’s when expensive meat, fish and convenience foods are added in. So not sure government food for the basics will make much difference.

Why would it cost money? Businesses do this everyday and make millions in profit. This would be not for profit so after all of the costs have been accounted for then they sell the food to the public without profit, not at a loss.

People working to produce, package and sell these items would be paying tax on top of it too.

It wouldn’t be a benefit replacement but it would stop the rise in benefits being needed and the increase in food banks would drop.

It would only be for the very basic items such as pasta, flour, oats and certain tinned foods.

Supermarkets don't produce food, they buy it on the open market, the same as the govt would. There would be (at best) no price difference.
In the war, food production wasn't automated, it was made by hand, hence land girls, factory workers etc, and they were paid a pittance.

How much do you think those basic items should cost though? They’re already very cheap, those items aren’t pushing people’s food costs up.

Yeah because the government is doing everything else so well. And so efficiently.

Health
Borders
Transport
Housing

I’ve used some of those basic items. The rice is inedible, you cannot cook it without it being mushy, I have tried everything. That rice is made from broken grains. The lentils is that for tinned lentils because dried lentils cost more and those are the ones that can make a meal. I haven’t seen a big bag of potatoes for £1. Cheapest I’ve seen is £1.20 and that’s if they are in stock. The other stuff yes I’ve seen and used them and they were fine.

My point is that if there were staple items that were not for profit and price guaranteed by the government then there would always be a food safety net. Food poverty could be greatly reduced.

What nonsense. Millions lived in overcrowded slums with no gardens during the wars! My parents told me of being constantly hungry in tenements in Glasgow due to food shortages and poverty. Do you think people have time to cook properly these days who are in minimum wage work , working long hours? Do you think poor people don't know how to cook? Food - quality, good food is very expensive. And don't tell us to eat porridge all the time as I have heard endlessly - yes, it is good as a breakfast but hardly good three times a day!

the basic items in super markets of the things you have listed are pretty cheap already. I doubt they could get them cheaper. Stamford street bread, rice beans ect are already pretty cheap and aldi are cheaper. I doubt the government could match that what is the point

The ignorance from people on the basics of the economy really are astounding.

The UK does bot have favourable growing conditions for rice and tomatoes, it's hard to believe that producing them here would be cheaper than importing them.

And you think what the government does will be high quality but cheap?? Ha - just like the nationalised train service in my area 😂😂
bearing in mind the farmers hate labour so do you think they are going to give them a cheap price??

and I’m pretty sure during the war the rice was mushy

Not sure where you’re getting your food from but I use the basic pasta and rice and it’s the same as the other supermarket branded, and tinned lentils are great for bulking out meals such as spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie and chilli. 1kg potatoes is less than £1, 2kg £1.20.

You keep saying the same thing over and over again about stuff being cheaper and poverty being reduced if the government takes over something.

Can you name one area where the government running it has made it cheaper and outcomes better for the pouting public. Just one.

I love the fact that the OP thinks tinned tomatoes and rice are produced in the UK. Keep the dead hand of government out of the production of anything. If the government owned the land (what are they going to do, steal it? They don’t seem to care much about farming - Ed Milibrain would have all our prime farmland covered in solar panels) then farming would become massively inefficient. I don’t understand, either, why the OP thinks that the government creating thousands of jobs to do what currently takes fewer people would somehow increase efficiency and cut down costs. Perhaps the OP should go and live in some communist country for a bit. Personally, I prefer freedom to choose. I have been very poor indeed in my life - yes, I had to count the biscuits, but my children never went hungry, and this was long before we had food banks.

I live in Tunbridge Wells and haven’t had water for 5 days. Why don’t we start with water companies?
I’m not for nationalising things usually but 95% countries have nationalised water I think it would have support but the only drawback is that the Labour government is more interested in spending its time getting rid of jury trials, self ID, hate crime legislation, cancelling local elections etc etc.

I studied food security as part of my masters. A lot of these government schemes to stabilise prices involves stockpiling ( massive silos full of grain/ rice) or forward contracts for staple grains. In the majority of cases it’s unclear as to whether it would have been easier/cheaper to not bother and just give poor people a cash subsidy because predicting harvests, and therefore prices, is actually quite hard and spoilage rates in silos is high. These schemes are designed to ensure social stability ( no food riots) but they cost the government quite a lot of money that would likely be better spent elsewhere.

Also , yes, supermarkets make big profits because they are big but their margins ( profits as % of sales) are thin- like 2%. The consumer is not getting scalped. It’s just getting expensive to grow and supply food for various reasons. I don’t see that the government could do any better.

Food is not expensive and few people know how to cook basic food stuffs. I can make a decent meal with protein, veg and carbs for under £1 and in less than 15 mins, yet the takeaways are full.

Having seen how governments perform, the thought of them organising basic food stuffs leaves me cold.