Calls for return of Churchill’s National Restaurant Service to tackle food inequality

In the 1940s in Britain, when fast food and ready meals were not yet popular on the British high street and the country was struggling with the aftermath of war, a popular new restaurant chain was founded.

It served high-quality food at reasonable prices, attracted customers from across the spectrum of British society and grew at a rate of 10 new locations a week at its most popular. The brains behind the operation? The British government, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Churchill’s British Restaurants, a chain of government-funded canteens offering nutritious meals at a maximum price, were designed to counter the inflation of food and fuel prices caused by the war and to promote community spirit. At their height, there were more British restaurants There are now more McDonald’s or Wetherspoons branches in the UK.

Now, a new report is calling for the return of a “national restaurant service” in some form, as a way to tackle contemporary issues such as health disparities, food insecurity and even climate change in the UK. A forthcoming report titled Public dinners: the idea whose time has comeby NGO for food policy Feed Scotlandmarks the start of a campaign to introduce restaurants as a new piece of national infrastructure, a call backed by politicians and experts.

A community food venue, according to the report, is a state-subsidised eatery that serves high-quality, ethically produced food at affordable prices. Importantly, Nourish Scotland says, they are neither charity nor treats, but rather everyday eating places that whole communities can access.

“For other aspects of our wellbeing – water, transport, healthcare, even wifi – we’ve built the public infrastructure to ensure that everyone has quality, universal access. That’s something we’re missing when it comes to food,” says Abigail McCall, project officer at Nourish Scotland.

“Poor diets have long since overtaken smoking as the leading cause of avoidable ill health. We need government to make a bold intervention in our food environment and invest in delivering what the market doesn’t: healthy, climate-friendly food in a convenient way and at an affordable price.

“Creating public infrastructure is a big undertaking, but we’ve done it before. We’ve built public railways, parks, libraries. It can be done, and it’s easy to see how diners would connect with it, given the impact our food has on our health, our environment, and our communities.”

The call for a chain of public eating establishments has been backed by experts including Dr Christian Reynolds, a researcher at the Centre for Food Policy at City University of London and a global expert on food waste and sustainable diets. “British restaurants were an effective solution to providing access to good food during the Second World War,” he said.

“Today, Nourish Scotland’s proposed public dining – state-subsidised, affordable restaurants – makes sense in 2024. The modelling (this report) suggests it will deliver positive benefits in terms of health, local economic support and sustainability outcomes.”

Hospital data from last year showed the number of patients in England and Wales being treated for nutritional deficiencies had tripled in a decade, while a January 2024 study by the Food Foundation found that 20% of UK households with children reported experiencing food insecurity.

And, Nourish Scotland says, the ingredients could come from organic farms, reducing unsustainable food production methods and food waste, and boosting the local economy.

Public dinners have already been implemented elsewhere in the world. In Poland, government-funded “milk bars” (bar is small) became popular during communist times as a way to serve traditional, home-cooked food at low prices. This method of cooking remains popular today.

Singapore’s hawker centres, market-style communal eating spaces, emerged as part of the country’s post-independence urban redevelopment. They bring a range of street vendors under one roof to ensure vendors have access to ingredients and space, and that consumers meet food hygiene standards and freedom of choice.

The call for government-subsidised restaurants in the UK comes at a time of growing international demand for public restaurants as key infrastructure.

Former New York Times Food writer Mark Bittman, now a global leader in food culture and policy and founder of the nonprofit restaurant chain Community Kitchen, described the plan as “brilliant” and “doable.”