A Guild Manifesto

I’m on a plane now.? Peeking out the window, to seek inspiration for this month’s missive is redundant at 36,000 feet.? That’s my trick for the tardy train journeys.? This journey has a more enlightened purpose: I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and judging the Cheesemonger Invitational, the much-hyped cheese retail gig, held in Brooklyn, run by the engaging Adam Moskovic. I’ll also be cruising the aisles of the Fancy Food Show at the Javitts Centre.?

I’m headed for the US and more specifically, New York, on a food & drink trade mission to see what the Americans make of Great Taste and World Cheese.? I move from one election campaign to another.? Apologies for the cliched question but are those two vacuous men vying for that critical top job, the best the country has to offer?? And then there’s the US.

In the next 72 hours I reckon we’ll be settling into a new government.? Professionally I am a political man, personally less so.? You’ve probably read the headlines from the various parties’ manifestos, and possibly, like me, you look for the food, farming and high street pledges.? There’s some intent there with the Tories promising ‘100,000 high-quality apprenticeships’ (in what though?) and Labour are looking to address inequality in business rates for online and bricks and mortar retailers. Laudable stuff.?

But there’s no point me just pontificating about others. Get off the fence fella. What would I do?? What would a Guild of Fine Food manifesto look like if we were in a parallel universe, where the primary notion would be that worthy food and drink would be a right rather than a privilege?

Imagine me on the top deck of the campaign bus fist pumping… We’d subsidise regenerative and responsible farming, accepting that rewilding, whilst having ecological benefits, cannot feed enough folk.? We’d cut down on food miles throughout the supply chain by encouraging SME’s to do business more locally, and not just in the private sector.? Public procurement too.?

We’d fight to reinstate home economics at school and introduce a food & drink retail apprenticeship programme to encourage the young to have a meaningful career in our sector, cascading knowledge about farming, production methods and nutrition to anyone who’ll listen.

The High Street would be a better place by ensuring business-rates equality between all retailers, removing parking charges in town centres and encouraging community-driven businesses, creating employment that generates the all-important local pound.

Labelling would be honest, transparent and accurate on those products in those shops on that High Street.?? You’d know how it was made, who made it and that the ingredients were sourced with care and from a fair place.

Our borders.? The biggie.? The GFF Party would get round that euro table and thrash out some sort of deal to curb friction at the border.? We’d ignore the Brexit chat and get down to level-headed negotiations, ensuring that we could trade easily, without hinder with our most important and obvious trading partners, those closest to us.?

I’m sure I’ll like the Americans and their admirable craft food scene, but we need to trade with Ireland, France, Spain and the rest of Europe, although I’m pretty sure most of them are too busy to negotiate, as from what I can make out, most of Europe is distracted by choosing their very own ineffectual leaders too.

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