British supermarkets are imposing limits on how many salad staples shoppers can buy as supply shortages leave shelves empty of some types of fruit and vegetables. The disappearance of fresh produce is said to be largely the result of adverse weather leading to a reduced harvest in southern Europe and North Africa.

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the closely watched food price index of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reached its highest recorded level, stoking consumer prices across the world. In the UK, for example, the prices of many everyday items increased way ahead of inflation, with bread and eggs both up 18% in the year to December, and milk up 30%.

Food prices in the UK are at their highest for 15 years and something similar is happening in almost every country around the world.

Global coffee consumption has been increasing steadily for almost 30 years. With a daily average consumption of 2.7 cups of coffee per person, coffee is now Canada’s most popular drink. It is estimated that around two billion cups of coffee are consumed daily worldwide.

Fire has been essential for cooking since before the dawn of civilisation. In many places across the world, traditional methods – cooking on an open fire or stove – have been replaced by gas or electricity, yet continued use of solid biomass fuels in traditional stoves across the developing world is seriously affecting the health of people who are already vulnerable.

Rising competition for many of the world’s important crops is sending increasing amounts toward uses other than directly feeding people. These competing uses include making biofuels; converting crops into processing ingredients, such as livestock meal, hydrogenated oils and starches; and selling them on global markets to countries that can afford to pay for them.

Megan Blake, Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Sheffield

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed just how much we depend on easy access to food. The beginning of the UK’s lockdown saw the closure of restaurants and pubs, and empty supermarket shelves. The number of people who are struggling to access food because of financial difficulties has dramatically swelled.

A form of government rationing is now needed, says one of the UK’s leading food supply experts.

Tim Lang, City, University of London

Food security is no laughing matter at the best of times, but I gasped when I first read the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) annual food civil contingencies infrastructure report in 2018. It is barely a page long (in public at least) and assures us everything is OK and that the food system is resilient and able to withstand shocks. As the coronvirus racks the nation and panic buying continues, this complacency is about to be tested.

We’re increasingly aware of how plastic is polluting our environment. Much recent attention has focused on how microplastics – tiny pieces ranging from 5 millimetres down to 100 nanometres in diameter – are filling the seas and working their way into the creatures that live in them. That means these ocean microplastics are entering the food chain and, ultimately, our bodies.

The globalization of the food chain has resulted in increased complexity and diminished transparency and trust into how and where our foods are grown, harvested, processed and by whom.

In exploring new paths to market, Food Service Companies are increasingly looking to external providers to acquire the scientific and technological expertise that will help them improve their growth strategy and advance the capabilities of their own innovation teams.

Soon, it will be possible, to know a great deal about the food product that was just delivered to your door. Systems designers and developers from across the foodservice sector are working together to join up the links that will make this possible. At the moment, you would be lucky if the product you ordered online had arrived safe and sound to your home or office. It might, for instance, not be the product you ordered but the product that someone else ordered.

Food Delivery Orders (Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat) are said to be increasing 30 times faster than for the overall foodservice industry. Meal kits (HelloFresh, Gousto and Mindful Chef) now account for more than 5 million meals a month in the UK. In the US in 2018, Delivery orders in accounted for more than 9% of all restaurant sales. In London, the current figure is 12%.

Amazon, without doubt, has been broadening the reach of the world's most advanced logistics platform and is now sharpening its focus on food. Food management (production, packaging, service, delivery, etc) is however a very complex business and Amazon's recent closure of its restaurant delivery service in the UK is very likely to be a full acknowledgement of this. 

The arrival of online food delivery platforms, bringing greater choice and convenience, has revolutionized the way we purchase and consume food. The capability of ordering food for delivery with a single tap of your mobile phone, whether it be your weekly supply, a meal box or a hot and ready to eat meal is the result of a series of technological and digital innovations that have as yet to run their full course.