Ep. 053: Who Really Wins and Loses in the Food System? With Sue Pritchard

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.

In this episode:

• What we actually mean by "the food system" and why the definition matters
• The ABCD companies: the four private firms (plus one Chinese state company) that control over 80% of global commodity trade
• Why Cargill's profits jumped 27% while the rest of us absorbed food price spikes
• Commodified, consolidated, financialised: the three words that explain how we got here
• Who's really losing: farmers on below real-living-wage incomes, citizens paying twice (at the till and through their taxes), and our public health
• The assumptions keeping the system stuck: "people only want cheap food", "nobody wants a nanny state", "this is a middle-class concern"
• What happened when FFCC actually asked people what they want from food (spoiler: the response rate was five times the norm)
• The role of anger, and why Rowan Williams called it the "appropriate emotional response"
• Rutger Bregman, shame, and whether it is time to make certain jobs socially unacceptable again
• Finding your lane: why we do not all have to do everything everywhere all at once
• The "What Works Here?" inquiries and the stories of hope already on the ground

Approximate timestamps:

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

Sue's best lines

"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."

Links and resources mentioned in this episode

Sue Pritchard and FFCC

• Food, Farming and Countryside Commission: https://ffcc.co.uk
• The Food Conversation: https://thefoodconversation.uk
• FFCC's overview of The Food Conversation and Citizen Mandate: https://ffcc.co.uk/so-what-do-we-really-want-from-food

People and works referenced

• Henry Dimbleby's National Food Strategy: https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org
• Rutger Bregman's 2025 BBC Reith Lectures, Moral Revolution: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9
• Rutger Bregman, Moral Ambition: https://www.moralambition.org
• Nate Hagens, The Great Simplification: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com
• Hodmedod's (Josiah Meldrum): https://hodmedods.co.uk
• Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and former Bishop of Monmouth

Things growing at the Grange right now

• The Grange Project: https://grangeproject.co.uk
• Wilder Podcast (Episode 52 is the full Grange update): https://grangeproject.co.uk/podcast/three-years-in-the-honest-truth-about-rewilding-80-acres
• Events, including Community Day on 16 May with the People's Emergency Briefing screening: https://grangeproject.co.uk/events
• Farm Start with Rachel Hammond and other courses: https://grangeproject.co.uk/events/farmstart-a-six-day-hands-on-course-for-people-ready-to-earn-from-growing-food-with-rachel-hammond
• Wales Seed Hub (Hwb Hadau Cymru): https://www.seedhub.wales
• Real Seeds: https://realseeds.co.uk

The National Emergency Briefing / People's Emergency Briefing

• National Emergency Briefing: https://www.nebriefing.org
• Find a local screening: https://www.nebriefing.org/screening-map

If this episode moved you

The one thing that genuinely helps us is a rating and review wherever you listen. It nudges the podcast up the rankings and puts it in front of people who might benefit from it too.

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