Food insecurity in the UK has risen in the last six months, according to new data, amid calls for a ‘Good Food Bill to protect against cost-of-living pressures.
New data released today from The Food Foundation has revealed that 12 per cent of UK households experienced food insecurity in January 2026, which includes 6.3 million adults, up from 11 per cent in June 2025. Some 15 per cent of households with children experienced food insecurity in January 2026, which amounts to 2.2 million children in the UK.
The data, which was based on statistics supplied by YouGov and independently analysed, found that 53 per cent of food insecure households cut back on fruit, and 40 per cent on veg in the past 30 days. For those not food insecure, this was 10 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively.
Food insecurity levels peaked during the height of the cost-of-living crisis in 2022. Since then, levels have remained stubbornly high, though they had been slowly decreasing. The new data, however, shows that food insecurity rates are creeping up once again, and has prompted growing calls for Government to introduce a ‘Good Food Bill’ to protect citizens from food price shocks.
In anew report released alongside the data, the Food Foundation, Sustain and Green Alliance are calling for a ‘Good Food Bill’ that would provide a legal framework to protect citizens, farmers and food businesses from food system shocks and tackle some of the issues that are deeply entrenched in our food system. This follows a joint statement from over 100 retailers, businesses, investors, NGOs, and academics calling for new ‘Good Food Bill’ that was published last month. The report details that a ‘Good Food Bill’ could reshape the food system over the long-term to ensure that affordable, healthy, and sustainable food is accessible for everyone, and secure a domestic supply of nutritious food, that is resilient to shocks. This would deliver the food strategy outcomes set out in the Government’s Good Food Cycle and ensure the failures exposed by the cost-of-living crisis are never repeated.
The report states that the Good Food Bill should:
- Include three legally binding targets: Reduction in childhood obesity, and reducing the gap between the richest and poorest children by 2050; increase in the national average consumption of fruit and veg among children and an increase in the proportion of the fruit and veg supply which is produced in Britain by 2040; and reduction in household food insecurity as measured by DWP by 2035.
- Set a definition for a ‘healthy and sustainable diet.’ This would ensure school meals, hospital food, food industry restrictions, and public sector procurement all work towards the same nutritional goals, and that agricultural policy supports farmers to produce more nutritious foods we actually need people to eat.
- Place a duty on government to publish a Good Food Action Plan every five years.
- Enforce cross-departmental working from Government.
- Place a duty on local authorities to play a role in strengthening the resilience of food systems.
- Include independent monitoring of progress from the Food Standards Agency – working closely with the Climate Change Committee, Office for Environmental Protection and National Protective Security Authority.
Anna Taylor, Executive Director at The Food Foundation, commented: “Many are asking whether the conflict in Iran will push up food prices. The honest answer is, it will, if it is prolonged. But that question misses the bigger point. The real issue is that the UK food system has become dangerously exposed to shocks far beyond our borders. From energy markets in the Middle East to global fertiliser and shipping routes, our food supply is now tightly bound to geopolitical events we cannot control. The cost-of-living crisis already exposed how fragile this system is. Families felt it at the checkout, farmers felt it on their balance sheets, and food banks felt it in record demand.
“What we are seeing today is not a one-off crisis – it is a warning. Decades without a coherent, statutory framework for food policy have left the system fragmented, heavily import-dependent, and failing on multiple fronts: rising childhood obesity, farmers leaving the land, and growing insecurity for millions of households. Short-term firefighting won’t fix this. It’s like trying to patch a sinking ship while the storm is still building. What we need now is a Good Food Bill that sets out a long-term framework for building resilience in the UK food system — one that holds successive governments to account and protects citizens and farmers alike. We should act now, before the next shock hits. Because every time we delay, the cost grows — for families, for farmers, and for the country as a whole.”
Tim Lang, Professor Emeritus of Food Policy, Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s at the University of London, added: “If getting prepared to feed the public well in times of shock was taken seriously, we’d have to redesign the food system to make that happen. Placing a duty on authorities to be able to feed all the public well in crises means civil food resilience becomes real. We cannot just trust to luck or big retailers to feed us in crises. Food resilience is a common good. Such a duty would mean food is taken as seriously as the energy system. If we can plan to keep the lights on, why not plan to keep people fed?”
And Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive at Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, concluded: “Too many people in the UK are struggling to afford their shopping bill. Without a fundamental shift in the way we plan things as a country, that is only going to get worse. Our current food system is totally out of date and is over reliant on cheap processed food imported from overseas. It is failing British farmers and growers, it is failing our health, and it is failing to keep shopping bills down.
“We need to build a 21st Century food economy where fresh, nutritious food is grown closer to home and within reach of every neighbourhood. By growing and producing more in the UK, we can cushion the blow to our shopping bills from pandemics, wars and climate shocks. New legislation on food would set a strong course for successive Governments to build a food system that keeps people healthy and keeps food affordable. The food system has simply got to change – and a Good Food Bill is how we change it.”
