Imagine the scene. In 2035, British farmers are facing a terrible harvest after another long, hot summer and supply chains from overseas have been strained by conflicts far away. Panic buying has stripped supermarket shelves. The prime minister appears on TV, pleading for calm.
A video purporting to show certain groups being given free rations flashes around social media and WhatsApp chats. It isn’t real, but the government is slow to react – and anyway, nobody trusts the government now. It’s enough to tip desperate people from pleading for help to trying to help themselves.
At the gates of a food depot, a scuffle breaks out as staff try to keep crowds away from lorries heading out for delivery. Soon a mob is throwing bricks, bottles and anything else that comes to hand. It’s the first in a wave of food riots.
It sounds dystopian. But we are far closer to food riots than you might think. A study by dozens of the country’s top food experts warns that the UK food system is a “tinderbox” – with just one shock potentially sparking food riots.
One possible route to food riots experts described was of “hunger and resulting feelings of despair when coupled with a lack of trust in government and exacerbated by ineffective messaging by the media, the food industry and governments, and potentially amplified by social media”. It pointed to a major new international conflict, extreme weather events and cyber attacks as the top three shocks that could hit supply chains and push up food prices.
“Any combination of these shocks could lead to a UK food availability and/or price shock that could result in widespread fear of unsafe or inadequate food, leading to violence,” concluded the study, published in the journal Sustainability.
The study explains that the first signals of food shortages can lead to panic buying, creating further food shortages and increasing panic buying due to visibly empty shelves. Think of the aisles emptied of pasta and other food during the early days of the pandemic. Food fraud (a broad term which spans practices from mislabelling food to watering down products with cheaper alternatives) increases at times of food shortage along with an increase in black markets in stolen foods.
Tension “could also be magnified by the spread of misinformation or manipulation that increases polarisation or despair in a crisis”. All of this increases the chance of crime and violence potentially “giving life to food riots,” the study warns.
In 2023, a separate study asked 58 leading UK food experts in academia, policy, charitable organisations and business to rate the likelihood of a scenario occurring in the UK in which more than 30,000 people suffered violent injury over the course of one year as a result of events such as demonstrations or violent looting due to food shortages.
Just over 40 per cent of these experts said they thought such a scenario was either possible, more likely than not or very likely in the next 10 years. Over 50 years, that went up to four-fifths of experts.
And this feels all the more pertinent in the light of fears that food prices will rise because of the Iran war. If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to send your food bills soaring it’s the rocketing price of oil, as happened at the start of the Ukraine war.
Now, the Iran war has sent oil prices up by nearly 40 per cent since it began at the end of February, to just over $100 a barrel at the time of writing – though last week it peaked at $118. As Iran tells the world to “get ready” for prices to hit $200, a fresh round of food price hikes looks inevitable.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has already warned MPs that the new war could push the expected overall inflation rate for UK goods and services up this year from 2 per cent to 3 per cent, driven by much bigger rises in food, energy and petrol prices.
So, why do oil prices have such a big effect on food costs and what are the broader implications? The cost of oil – and, to a lesser extent, gas (up by 75 per cent on pre-crisis levels at the time of writing) – pushes up food prices every step of the way.
Natural gas is a key ingredient of fertilisers which, in turn, are a major cost in agriculture. Meanwhile, despite the growth of solar and wind power, gas-fired power plants still provide much of our electricity, used for refrigerating our food.
Oil (and derivatives such as petrol and diesel) are used to power farm irrigation systems, tractors and delivery trucks and to produce plastic packaging used for the much of the produce we eat.
The risk of rising food prices and supply shortages isn’t helped by the fact that just under half of the UK’s entire food supply is imported, including 80 per cent of our fruit, a fifth of our vegetables and a quarter of our beef and poultry. Overall, the UK is 54 per cent self-sufficient in food – one of the lowest rates in Europe.
Nor is climate change helping. Since 2020, British farmers have suffered three of the five worst harvests since records began in 1984, with the heat and drought of last summer making 2025 particularly bad.
Food supplies are so precarious that Professor Tim Lang, of City St George’s, University of London, called on the Government this month to start stockpiling food. Other countries have emergency stockpiles in case of war, food contamination or climate shocks. Switzerland’s stockpile, for instance, could currently feed its entire population for three months, and that is being increased to a year.
But the UK began getting rid of its stockpiles in the 90s following the end of the Cold War. There is a case now for the Government to consider rebuilding them. And it may make sense for households to protect their own supplies, if only to reduce pressure on the supermarkets if the shelves get depleted.
The key is to do this gradually, a few extra items at a time, to avoid creating the kind of shortages that could trigger panic buying. There isn’t any need to panic right now – and a consideration for each other is one way to make sure we won’t in future.
Hence then, the article about the uk is closer to food riots than you may think was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The UK is closer to food riots than you may think )
Also on site :
- Scammer posed as ‘well-known adult film star’ to defraud NFL and NBA players online from behind bars, feds say
- Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky arrives in UK as Starmer government vows ‘not to forget war in Europe’
- ‘Giggly Squad,’ ‘Call Her Daddy,’ ‘Good Hang With Amy Poehler’ & More Win at 2026 iHeartPodcast Awards: Full List