Last night saw celebrity chefs including Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Delia Smith debate the impact of mass-produced food on the environment with the public.
While Jamie and Hugh continued to campaign against battery farmed hens, Delia defended the cheap meat they provide to poorer families.
The event, which took place at the Real Food Festival, was also attended by industry experts including Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose and Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University and winner of the Observer Food Monthly’s 2007 lifetime achievement award.
While environmentally friendly chefs and restaurants were praised for their efforts to avert a crisis in food supplies, others were named and shamed for refusing to take heed of the warnings of experts.
Gordon Ramsay and New York eatery Le Bernardin were commended for refusing to sell endangered species like bluefin tuna in their establishments. But Japanese fusion chef Nobu Matsuhisa was criticised for continuing to serve Chilean sea bass despite its near extinction.
The debate centred on current problems faced by the international community, in particular sustainability, overfishing by commercial trawlers, and the exacerbation of the crisis by large supermarkets. It also addressed possible solutions and issues of the future.
Supermarket representatives were invited to the evening but declined to attend. Presumably Jamie Oliver was quite relieved not to be facing his employer in the debate, after his comments earlier this year about Sainsbury’s landed him in hot water.