Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050

Over recent years, the food system’s vulnerability to sudden shocks has become starkly apparent – from pandemic upheavals to conflict-driven price spikes and extreme weather events. These disruptions underscore why transformation
cannot wait. We publish this Roadmap at a pivotal moment: the UK government in July 2025 launched a new food strategy process and set out an aspirational vision for change. The question now is how to turn vision into reality.
Our approach to producing this Roadmap has been distinctive in three ways. First, we’ve taken a whole-systems perspective that examines how food production, land management, supply chains and consumption patterns interconnect. Second, we’ve looked beyond current trends to explore how different combinations of geopolitical shifts, economic trends and evolving social values might reshape our food system in the decades ahead. Third, we’ve employed an inclusive methodology that engages diverse people and interests to develop a more nuanced understanding of practical challenges.
Through commissioning research projects, hosting expert webinars, convening workshops and developing scenario-modelling tools, we have brought together expertise and evidence from across disciplines and sectors. By synthesising
these diverse insights, we have developed a Roadmap for transformational change – recognising that the climate challenge cannot be addressed through a single lens or isolated interventions.
Rather than viewing emissions reduction in isolation, we’ve examined how transformation could simultaneously address multiple issues – maintaining food security, improving public health, enhancing biodiversity, reducing
inequality and supporting livelihoods – as well as helping the food system play its part in achieving the UK’s net zero objectives. This report represents the culmination of this collective effort, exploring plausible pathways for transformational change and identifying robust interventions that work across different future scenarios.
The goal of our Network has been to move beyond current ‘business as usual’ thinking to identify practical steps that can be taken now to enable necessary changes in the coming decades to 2050 and beyond. We hope this Roadmap
will inspire thought and inform action across government, industry and civil society to create a more sustainable and resilient UK food system that works better for people and the planet.