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GOVERNMENT departments spent more than £600m on foreign food last year, with nearly a third of all of the food it purchased coming from abroad despite pledges to support British farmers.

Politicians have extolled the virtues of British food for some time now but figures show that a sizeable proportion of the food served in Whitehall departments is still coming from abroad.
A Yorkshire Post investigation has revealed that 30 per cent of all food used by the Government is imported, with a total of three Government departments not serving a single rasher of British bacon to staff and other departments choosing to import food from the other side of the world.
Figures obtained by the Yorkshire Post under the Freedom of Information Act show that food has been imported from as far away as Argentina and New Zealand.
Farming leaders and environmentalists condemned the figures and said more should be done to source food domestically.
All Government departments sub-contract their catering services to private firms. Lee Woodger, head of the food chain unit at the National Farmers' Union, said civil servants should look at domestic sourcing as well as price when making decisions about who supplies their food.
Tender documents were specifically about price; he said "they should also be about quality and local sourcing."
The worst offending department for using imported food was the Ministry of Justice which is only getting just over half of its food from British farms.
The Ministry said that a sizeable amount of its fruit and vegetables were imported from the likes of Argentina, Peru and Zambia but most of its meat was sourced from UK farmers.
However, only 60 per cent of the meat served to staff and visitors to the Treasury is sourced from British farms and just 35 per cent of the fruit and vegetables served are domestic food. The Department for International Development and the Department for Work and Pensions were not much better, with 55 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively, of their food being British.
The Department for International Development gets only 15 per cent of its bacon and 30 per cent of its chicken from British farmers.
Other departments, including the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Children, Schools and Families came out much better, with both boasting British produce in 88 per cent of the food served.
The Department of Health served up no British bacon. Also failing to serve up any British bacon was the Department for Work and Pensions, which has offices in Leeds.
There was some comfort for Britain's ailing dairy industry in that 100 per cent of of the fresh milk used by Government departments was British.
In 2003 the Government established the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative; priorities included increasing producers' ability to do business with the public sector.
A Defra spokesman said the initiative was reviewed last winter and Defra hoped to update it to reflect the recommendations. "Meanwhile, the Pig Meat Taskforce is examining how public sector buyers can source more pork and bacon that meets UK welfare standards."

Thin time for producers

  30 per cent of all· food used by the Government is imported

  60 per cent of meat· served to staff and visitors to Treasury is from British farms

  Three Government· departments do not serve a single rasher of British bacon to staff

  But 100 per cent of· fresh milk used by Government departments is British.

Humphrey Feeds Comment – A national scandal!