What UK food rationing would look like if WW3 broke out | UK | News

For decades we’ve mostly taken for granted being able to nip down the shop and load up on every kind of food from bread and milk to international fare like avocados and pineapples. But with global tensions escalating thanks to the war in Ukraine rumbling on and the US pushing the UK and EU to arm themselves, it feels as though the risk of another global conflict, while probably low overall, is closer than it has been in a while.

There has been talk of what will happen to men and women in the UK if conscription is enacted, but there’s another big wartime scheme which could also impact British households in the event of another global conflict: rationing. It might sound far-fetched in the modern era of globalised transport networks, but food supplies could well be impacted if war broke out – not just in terms of availability via shipping, but due to stockpiling and panic buying too.

You don’t have to go back very far to find examples of rationing-style limits on food and essentials in the UK: just five years ago, during the pandemic, supermarkets had to implement limits per customer on essentials like toilet roll, eggs and bread.

During Covid, toilet roll panic buying went crazy, despite the fact it’s made in the UK and not imported. Other essentials which were limited per customer included eggs, milk and bread, with many supermarkets not allowing customers to buy more than one or two each during socially distanced shops.

Just a few years later, when Russia invaded Ukraine, food prices spiralled, sending the cost of many essential foods soaring, and inflation hit 11% in the UK as a result of food and energy bill increases.

As explained by History and Policy.org: “The product restrictions and special opening hours that major food suppliers and retailers imposed on their customers in March 2020 are a historically novel form of rationing in which the state delegates responsibility for food rationing to private business.”

At that time, with so many households battling the cost of living, Asda introduced a new Essentials range, and told shoppers its yellow-branded cheap items were limited per customer. These were of course limits introduced by retailers themselves, and not by government.

In the event of a war, though, this is what the UK could do to protect food supply levels, prevent panic buying and ensure everyone has enough of the essentials.

In WW2, food was divided into three groups. The first was guaranteed rationed food such as sugar. The second group included milk, eggs, fish, fruits and vegetables, the availability of which was not always guaranteed. The third was staple foods like bread and potatoes, which were not controlled so that people could freely eat these staple foods to stave off hunger.

The foods were rationed using a points system with coupons issued for every man, woman and child. Even with rationing, long queues at markets were commonplace and the prices of non-rationed goods rocketed. As the war continued, more and more foods were added to the rationing list.

The British Geriatric Society said: “On January 8th 1940 butter, bacon and sugar followed. Later meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, lard, milk, canned and dried fruit joined the list. Babies, pregnant women and the sick were allocated additional food items such as milk, orange juice and cod liver oil.”

But could rationing happen today? According to Mark Roodhouse, in a research paper written during the pandemic, rationing of food is likely to be led by retailers in any wartime, just as it was during Covid and the Russian invasion, thanks to policy in place by government.

He wrote: “In 2006 DEFRA decided to delegate feeding the people during a civil emergency to the market and major retailers. With government backing, trade associations and major firms decide – behind closed doors – who gets what. The public does not know who attends these meetings but planning documents suggest only limited involvement by smaller independent companies…Comparison with earlier periods reveals that the current system is an historical novelty blurring the lines between formal and informal rationing.”