Taking the die out of diet with Stuart Gillespie
About
There is now a broad consensus, particularly since Henry Dimbleby's Independent Food Strategy, that our food systems are deeply dysfunctional from a social, environmental and economic perspective with Ultraprocessed Foods as the main culprit. Tim Jackson estimated the negative economic impact of the food system in the UK as £268 billion! What is less clear is what to do about it. Local, independent food systems have been hollowed out, particularly in the UK compared to the rest of the EU, unable to compete with ubiquity and economies of scale of Big Food. Government also seems to be in the pocket of Big Food, the biggest industrial sector in the UK and crucial for its focus on economic growth at all cost. How can we build new food economies that are focussed on health, sustainability and justice, and take the die out of diet! Maybe Oxford could lead the way building on the Oxfarmtofork and other local food initiatives....Stuart has four decades of experience in food, nutrition and health policy, programming and research since his first position as nutrition coordinator in a project in southern India (1984-86). After acquiring a PhD in Human Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1988, he spent four years with the World Health Organisation in Geneva, two years with UNICEF in India and four years as a freelance consultant. He joined the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in 1999, where he led several initiatives, including a consortium on the double burden of malnutrition, the Regional Network on AIDS, Livelihoods and Food Security (RENEWAL), Transform Nutrition, the Stories of Change initiative and a flagship of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) programme. He has around 200 publications including 10 books. His latest book is Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet (Canongate, 2025) which is short-listed for the Fortnum and Mason Food Book award.
He will present on the dysfunctionality of food systems, and be joined by Janie Bickersteth, Oxfarmtofork programme manager, and Henry Leveson-Gower, CEO of Promoting Economic Pluralism and editor of The Mint, to discuss developing alternative local food systems.
Janie has spent nearly 30 years helping people grow and access good food, drawing on a lifelong connection to food growing that began in childhood with her father. Through work in schools and communities in Durham, Singapore, Lambeth and now Oxfordshire, she has developed a strong commitment to fair, local food systems and to making healthy food available to everyone. Her experience with the Incredible Edible movement and now with Good Food Oxfordshire, where she leads the OxFarmToFork initiative, has strengthened her belief that farmers and producers should be fairly rewarded and that good food should reach schools and hospitals. At heart, she is driven by a simple aim: to help build food systems that heal both people and the planet.
Henry is working with Oxfarmtofork and other local food activists to develop new collaborative food economies. He worked on agri-food innovation at Defra for almost 10 years and now works at the intersection of ecological economics and institutional design, developing the governance, funding and collaborative economic models needed to build resilient, just and place-based land, water and food systems.
Date
Wednesday 29 April 2026 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (UTC+01)Location
Makespace Oxfordshire
1 Aristotle Lane, Oddington, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX2 6TP
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Taking the die out of diet with Stuart Gillespie
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