NewHarvest began with a simple but urgent recognition: the UK’s food system is dangerously fragile, and very few people in positions of power are responding with the seriousness the moment demands.
Our Story
For decades, Britain has built its food system around efficiency, cheap imports, and “just-in-time” supply chains. Supermarkets consolidated power, growers were squeezed on price, and farming became increasingly industrialised, centralised and extractive. The result is a system that produces cheap food, but often at the expense of farmer livelihoods, nutritional quality, soil health, biodiversity and long-term resilience. Today, the UK imports most of its fruit and a large proportion of its vegetables, while the number of growers has declined, barriers to entry have risen, and many rural communities have experienced a gradual hollowing-out of the livelihoods, skills, knowledge and traditions once rooted in the land.