With Angela Eagle warning UK households to store days' worth of emergency food for severe national weather events, what can the food manufacturing industry do to meet climate anxiety?
Following the hottest British summer on record and facing the oncoming threat of a ‘super’ El Nino, the threat to food security is a case of national security. At SmartParc, we believe that British business must show hope in the face of the climate crisis. The cost of climate change on the earliest stages of food production has already been seen this summer, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham highlighted in a TikTok recently, pledging a £65 million support package for English farmers. And, as the Food Standards Agency reported in 2024, these risks extend to every part of the food system:
“Concerns have been raised overissues such as the impact of the variability of food supply on the standardsand reliability of supply chains, impacts of heat and cold stress onworkforces, variability of moisture and temperature on storage, impact of extremeweather on trade and physical infrastructure.” (Hasnain, September 2024)
Just last month, Dr Liliana Danila, the Chief Economist for the FDF, outlined a path for British industry in the face of this anxiety:
“With extreme weather and supply chain disruption becoming the new normal, government must focus on building resilience into the food system to help limit the impact on food manufacturers and on shoppers. This means creating the right business conditions for manufacturers to invest in their growth and ensuring that policy decisions don’t add to the cost of making food” (August 2026)
The SmartParc SEGRO flagship project in Derby is already answering this call for resilience. It pioneers manufacturing with a model of collaboration, sustainability, and innovation. At its core is a belief that food can be manufactured in Britain, in a way we can be proud of, safeguarding a supply chain which is otherwise vulnerable to global shocks. SmartParc SEGRO Derby’s energy centre allows manufacturers to operate on a shared grid, recycling waste heat between units, with over a third of energy produced by onsite green sources. In an industry increasingly threatened by global circumstances, the site will create 5,000 jobs for the city of Derby. Meeting the ‘new normal’, at the heart of the campus will be our Innovation Centre, a space for cutting edge research, and local small and medium businesses to lease units, fostering the future of British food.
For UK households to have something to stockpile, the government must safeguard the food and drink industry. At SmartParc we are building a solution.
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