More than 100 organisations, from major grocers to farming groups, have written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham urging him to introduce a Good Food Bill. It's a call for the UK's food system to get the same long-term priority as energy and defence, and for the government to be legally required to act on food security, public health and household food insecurity.

It might read like a supermarket story. For garden retail, it's closer to home than it looks.

The numbers behind the letter

The letter points to a food system under sustained pressure. Fertiliser costs are up around 40 percent on last year, extreme weather is putting harvests at greater risk, and British fruit and vegetable production has dropped 16 percent since 2015, with the UK now importing 78 percent of its supply. Food prices are forecast to be 50 percent higher this November than at the start of the cost of living crisis, and food insecurity already affects 15 percent of households with children.

Signatories include Tesco, Sainsbury's, Aldi, Co-op, Waitrose and Booths, alongside manufacturers, wholesalers, investors and health experts. The campaign is being led by The Food Foundation, Green Alliance and Sustain, and polling shows strong public backing for the idea across the political spectrum.

Anna Taylor, Executive Director of The Food Foundation, said the UK's food system is "dangerously exposed to shocks far beyond our borders," and argued a long-term framework is needed to protect farmers, businesses and households alike.

Where garden retail fits in

Grow-your-own has spent the last few years moving from hobby to household habit. Seed sales, raised beds, community growing spaces, garden centre veg ranges, all of it sits directly inside the resilience story this letter is telling. A domestic food system that leans more on people growing something themselves, even at a small scale, is part of the answer to a supply chain that's importing more than three-quarters of its fruit and veg.

There's a retail opportunity in that too. Garden centres with strong food halls, farm shop concessions and grow-your-own ranges are increasingly the place shoppers turn to for food they trust the origin of, not just plants for the border. As affordability pressure pushes more households toward growing their own, garden retailers are well placed to be part of the answer, not just watch the debate happen elsewhere.

Whether or not a Good Food Bill makes it into law, the conversation it's starting about where the UK's food resilience comes from, is one garden retail has a genuine stake in.

Grow-your-own isn't a niche anymore, it's part of how the UK feeds itself. If you're a retailer, supplier or brand with a stake in that story, Glee is where the garden industry gets together to shape what's next. Visit Glee or find out about exhibiting to be part of the conversation.