The Power of the Public Plate

With Professor Kevin Morgan, chaired by Professor Neil Ward

In the UK, 1 in 20 meals served is paid for by the government — in schools, hospitals, prisons, and care homes. That's an enormous amount of purchasing power, but are we using it well? The ‘public plate’ could be a powerful lever for food system transformation, connecting what we buy and serve to public health, climate goals, and local food economies. Yet too often, public food is seen as a cost to minimise rather than an investment in people and place.

Professor Kevin Morgan has spent over twenty years researching how public institutions can — and do — serve good food against the odds. From Universal Free School Meals in Wales to innovative hospital catering and prison rehabilitation programmes, there's a ‘good food revolution’ underway. What can we learn from what's working? What's holding back faster progress? And how can local authorities, policymakers, and practitioners use public procurement to drive the changes we need?

About Kevin: Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance and Development at Cardiff University's School of Geography and Planning. His research focuses on food sustainability, public procurement, and how cities and regions can drive change through their purchasing power. Kevin has worked with the Welsh Government, the European Commission, and the OECD on food policy and place-based innovation. He is a member of the United Nations-sponsored School Meals Coalition, which aims to ensure every child in the world has access to a healthy meal at school by 2030. His new book, Serving the Public: The Good Food Revolution in Schools, Hospitals and Prisons, draws on over twenty years of research to show how public institutions can serve good food to deliver public health, social justice, and ecological integrity.

About Neil (chair): As well as a co-lead of the AFN Network+, Neil Ward is a professor at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he was deputy vice chancellor and PVC-Academic (2013-21). He has held chairs at the University of Leeds and Newcastle University, where he was director of the Centre for Rural Economy from 2004 to 2008.

He has also worked for periods on secondment to the Cabinet Office and as an advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council. He is author of Net Zero, Food and Farming: Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System (Routledge 2023).

About this webinar series

This webinar is part of a monthly series run by AFN Network+ which explores net zero in the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals.