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The invisible forces shaping what you eat, why they stay hidden, and what it actually takes to change them.
Sue Pritchard is CEO of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) and a farmer just down the road from us in Monmouthshire. In this episode she lays out exactly how the modern food system works, who benefits, who pays the price, and why the polite assumption that "people just want cheap food" is one of the most damaging myths in British public life.
We go into the ABCD commodity giants most people have never heard of, the three forces reshaping our plates (commodified, consolidated, financialised), the citizens' assemblies that proved the political class has been misreading the public for decades, and why Sue thinks it might finally be time to bring back the word shame.
This was one of those conversations where a missing piece of the puzzle dropped into place. Not cheery in places, but clarifying and energising.
00:00 - Welcome & Introduction
05:00 - Farm Start with Rachel Hammond (starts next month, places still available)
06:00 - Community Day, 16 May, plus the screening of the People's Emergency Briefing
08:20 - Introducing Sue Pritchard
09:30 - What the FFCC is and why it was set up after Brexit
12:30 - What we actually mean by "the food system"
18:30 - The winners: ABCD companies, Cargill, the Amazon, and chicken sheds in the Wye Valley
24:00 - The losers: farmers, citizens, public health
26:20 - The assumptions that keep the system stuck
28:45 - Sue "spits the dummy" and launches the citizens' assemblies
36:30 - Anger, Rowan Williams, and what to do with it
42:45 - Bregman, shame, and raising the social cost of harm
44:30 - Working inside the system: the conversations that actually move people
49:20 - Where hope already lives: the "What Works Here?" inquiries
54:30 - Tom and Chloe unpack it: invisible winners, shame, food security, and the search for brave leadership
"Perhaps anger is the appropriate emotional response to the degree of injustice that we are finally seeing."
"How do we tell the stories of the future that is already coming to life all around us? It's just not evenly distributed and it's not visible enough."
"Don't do bad things and don't be a dick. Those would be my missions for government."
Sue Pritchard and FFCC
People and works referenced
Things growing at the Grange right now
The National Emergency Briefing / People's Emergency Briefing
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If you want to come and experience any of this in person, the Community Day on 16 May is the easiest way in. Walk the land, get your hands in the soil, share food, watch the People's Emergency Briefing with people who are paying attention. All links above.
Until the next one.
Tom and Chloe
No transcript available for this episode.