Podcast by Footprint Media Group
13 October 2026
Boards are neither asking the right questions to understand the risk the food industry is facing from shocks to the system, nor allocating the time, energy or budget to materially reduce that risk. This was just one of a series of damning statements made by a group of anonymous industry insiders who returned this month with a fresh warning that current supply chains will not be resilient in the face of the climate crisis and other structural vulnerabilities. In this week’s episode, Nick speaks with Ana Cuddeford from the NGO Inside Track, which coordinated the memo, to explore why the group has once again felt the need to sound the alarm to investors and what they hope to achieve. With a new group of insiders specific to the hospitality and foodservice sector about to launch, Ana explains how concerned professionals can lend their own voice to the movement and why their warnings should not be seen as an attempt to bring their businesses down but rather to ensure those businesses, and the food system they are a part of, are equipped to deal with the challenges of the future.
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33:48
06 October 2026
Emily Coon is part of a new generation of sustainability professionals working to build long-term resilience into the bones of businesses. Soon to leave her role at St Austell Brewery to join the pub group, Fuller's, Emily joins Nick to discuss the changing nature of sustainability roles and responsibilities within the food and hospitality sectors, and the qualities this generation of leaders will need to bring to the table that sets them apart from those who came before. Emily shares the reasons why she sees it as a positive trend for the sustainability function to become more closely integrated into areas like finance, operations and procurement – but highlights the risk that accountability is lost in the process. She explains too why it’s essential the modern sustainability professional is commercially literate, and spells out why the ability to influence should be considered a sustainability ‘superpower’ in the absence of the authority to make business-critical decisions.
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30:45
29 September 2026
Sodexo bucked the wider hospitality sector trend in 2025 by hitting its target to cut food waste by 50%, five years ahead of the SDG 12.3 and UK Food & Drink Pact targets. To mark International Day for Food Loss and Waste on September 29th, Claire Atkins-Morris, sustainability director for Sodexo UK & Ireland, talks Nick through the strategy that has underpinned the caterer’s food waste reduction success and the landmark moments that have helped unlock £3.6m in food cost savings since 2015. Claire highlights the transformational impact of technology that gave Sodexo visibility over food waste data at a granular level, and details the activities, including chef engagement and employee-facing campaigns, that drove operational improvements. She also stresses how food waste reduction has not been a sustainability-led programme of work, but a top-down approach driven through core functions like finance and owned by senior leadership.
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33:41
23 September 2026
The stage was set at Barnsgrove, near Basingstoke in Hampshire last week for the inaugural Footprint Festival. Professionals from across the worlds of business, policy, civil society and academia came together to explore the Future of Sustainable Innovation in Foodservice & Hospitality. And what a memorable two days it was, with a programme packed full of speaker sessions, presentations, workshops, culinary demonstrations, entertainment and so much more. In this week’s episode, Nick is joined by Footprint’s director of insights and special projects Amy Fetzer – who masterminded the festival’s programme – to mull over some of the key takeaways from the event and hear the reflections of those who took part.
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29:49
15 September 2026
How can government and businesses help farms reduce their climate impact, while balancing priorities like profitability, resilience, food production and nature? This question was at the heart of a series of conversations held with farmers across England over the summer by the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission – a piece of work commissioned by Defra to help inform the government’s forthcoming Food and Farming Decarbonisation Plan. The discussions highlighted a loss of trust in government around climate policy and the emissions data that informs it, and a demand from farmers for policy to look beyond emissions and take a whole systems approach to farm sustainability. In this week’s episode, the FFCC’s Charlie Taverner joins Nick to share key insights from conversations with the farmers tasked with decarbonising agriculture, whose opinions are often marginalised in policy discourse around food and climate.
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38:26
08 September 2026
In the week when the secretary of state, Angela Eagle, advised households to keep buffer stocks of several days’ worth of food and water, the independent watchdog said Defra should do more to strengthen food supply chain resilience to major disruptions. In a new report, the National Audit Office said the department has taken some steps to improve its preparedness in recent years, but has not done enough to engage critical stakeholders, including businesses. In this week’s episode, one of the report’s authors, Rich Sullivan-Jones, joins Nick to talk through the key findings of a report which lands at a time when extreme weather is already putting significant pressure on food supply chains. Rich also provides an update on government work to build a more resilient food system via the national food strategy for England, and considers whether the vital role of the foodservice sector in responding to food shocks is fully understood within government.
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36:15