The Food Programme

Sheila Dillon looks at the plans to overhaul England’s school food standards, from cutting back on fried food, puddings and processed meat to serving more fruit and veg. She hears from pupils, caterers and campaigners who all want better school meals, but don’t always agree on how to get there. With concerns about cost and practicality, she asks what these changes might really mean for schools trying to make them work, ...

The BBC Food & Farming Awards come from Belfast this year. Jaega Wise heads to the Balmoral Show, the largest agri-food show in Northern Ireland, to find out what makes this such an amazing place for food and farming. Jaega will be meeting head judge Paula McIntyre to talk about why Northern Ireland is home to some of the UK's most exciting food and drink businesses. She also meets Eve Blair, presenter of Your Place and Mi...

Sheila Dillon visits fruit and veg growers across the country to ask what should the government put in its landmark plan to grow more in the UK.

With war in the Middle East driving up fertiliser and energy prices and a growing health crisis at home, more homegrown fruit and veg could hold the answers to many of our problems. But those on the ground tell a different story, as businesses prepare to invest more in farms overseas, incr...

Hallyu - the Korean Wave - is taking over. With dramas and films like Squid Game and K-Pop Demon Hunters topping the Netflix charts, K-beauty products filling TikTok feeds and chemist shop shelves, and the global tour of the biggest K-Pop band in the world, BTS, about to begin, there’s no getting away from it’s impact. In this programme Jaega Wise explores how this fascination with Korean culture is driving the populari...

Jaega Wise meets chef and broadcaster Matt Tebbutt at home in South Wales, to discuss his "Life Through Food". Matt has been presenting Saturday Kitchen Life on BBC One for almost a decade, but before he was a TV Presenter he worked as a chef - first in professional kitchens in London (he was in fact sacked by Marco Pierre White) and later ran his own gastropub in south Wales. It was his cooking there at The Foxhunter - which he r...

Francesco Fiore is a chef and Catering Manager at Milton Keynes University Hospital, and over the last few years has made some remarkable changes to the food experience for patients and staff. Awarded the title of “Caterer of the Year” in 2025 by the Hospital Caterers Association, Frank as he's affectionately known by his team, has transformed the quality and variety of the food, reducing waste and inspired colleagues a...

Sheila Dillon discusses the rise of eating disorders among young women as part of Radio 4’s “About the Girls” series, which is hearing from teens across the UK about life in 2026.

As the number of young girls suffering from eating disorders increases in the UK, Sheila Dillon hosts a discussion about what's causing the rise, and what can be done to improve treatment outcomes.

Details of help and support with eating d...

Generation Z, young adults aged roughly 18 to 30, are coming of age in a world defined by uncertainty. With difficult job and housing markets many are experiencing prolonged adolescence, often living with parents far longer than previous generations. At the same time, they are the first true digital natives: a generation growing up with the internet as a central part of their lives.

In this programme, Jaega Wise explores how th...

Much focus goes on food growing and selling, but is the missing link in increasing the UK's food self sufficiency actually food processing?

It might be all about Ultra Processed Foods in the news, but there is another, much older, side to food processing that plays an integral role in getting food from fields to our plates.

Beans, peas, oats, veg and barley can all be produced in the UK in abundance, but producers often have to tran...

Should we be taking water more seriously? The emergence of the water sommelier would suggest so. Jaega Wise visits a Cheshire restaurant that now offers its own water menu as well as a Peak District pub with a water bar and a borehole to draw its own spring water. She talks to the co-founder of the Fine Waters Academy Michael Mascha who believes that water should be appreciated as a product with its own terroir and hears from Dr...

Leyla Kazim reports from cork country in Portugal - where up to 10,000 of hectares of cork oak trees are being lost every year, despite laws protecting them from being cut down. Climate change is putting new stresses on the ancient forests, and as the cork industry worries that falling wine consumption could shrink global demand, Leyla asks why Portugal became the world’s biggest producer of cork in the first place, and what ...

Shaped by centuries of colonialism and challenged by a changing climate, what is the future of food for the Philippines?

Recent typhoons and floods were the worst seen in decades and there has been huge biodiversity loss. In the last century 93 per cent of forest cover has been lost. The archipelago's food system also carried the influence of Spanish and American control.

However, a new generation is attempting to forge a Filipin...

In this edition Sheila Dillon explores the creativity of chefs, and asks how it’s being affected by the ongoing cost of living crisis. For Sheila, creativity in cooking is one of the pleasures we often take for granted when we go out to eat, and marvels at the alchemy chefs work with raw ingredients. But the hospitality industry is grappling with very difficult economic conditions - increased national insurance, business rate...

A year after sharing a £10 supper with 200 strangers in Copenhagen’s Absalon - an old church turned community hub - Sheila asks whether that experience could be recreated in the UK. After all, communal meals here are often one-offs, sometimes pricey, or feel like generous soup kitchens.

In this edition, Sheila meets people determined to change that; Ingrid Wakeling and Phil Holtam from Sussex Surplus are running trial commun...

In a special edition Dan Saladino talks to the UK's biggest food producers and retailers to hear their visions for the future of food, health, sustainability and resilience.

Along with the DEFRA minister Dame Angela Eagle, some of the most influential figures in food and farming are gathering at the annual Sustainable Foods event held in London. On the agenda will be health and nutrition, food security, net zero and regenerative agr...

After concerns that honey from overseas is being watered down with cheap rice and corn syrups, Sheila Dillon investigates the scale of global honey fraud. It's a story of complex international supply chains with the world's food security at its heart.

In 2023, the European Commission found that 46 per cent of the honey it sampled was suspected to be fraudulent. Just last year at the World Beekeeping Awards the prize for Best Honey ...