The UK’s food system is optimised for efficiency rather than resilience, making it vulnerable to disruptions from climate change, geopolitical instability, and cyberattacks that could trigger a food system collapse—a situation in which the public lacks access to affordable food, potentially resulting in civil unrest, disease outbreaks, and extreme hunger.
The BAFR-UK project aims to identify interventions that will make the UK food system less vulnerable to external shocks in the long term. Using a backcasting methodology—working backwards from crisis scenarios—the project will identify interventions that strengthen food system resilience. The three-year, £2.05 million project is funded by UKRI and led by Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute, working alongside experts from the University of York, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of the West of England, and Royal Agricultural University.
Elta is co-developing an innovative serious game in collaboration with designer Matteo Menapace. The game enables decision-makers to experience cascading food system shocks in a safe environment, revealing system dynamics that traditional policy tools often overlook.
The project maps vulnerability pathways, tests interventions across the food chain, and develops quantitative resilience models through co-design with farmers, retailers, NGOs, policymakers and many others across the food system. Outputs will include an interactive dashboard, policy recommendations, and the serious game, providing evidence for building a more resilient UK food system while supporting environmental sustainability and public health.
This project involves co-design and collaboration with an incredible group of partners: AFN Network+, Better Food Traders, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Food Ethics Council, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, Food Standards Agency, IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution), Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming, Trussell, WRAP, WTW, and WWF-UK.
