The Food Programme

Dan Saladino reports on big ideas from the food world, ranging from a farming system that produces a climate friendly rice to a fermented yeast that releases an oil and could help prevent deforestation. The innovations are being recognised by the judges of this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards and Sweden's Food Planet Prize. All have the potential to make a positive impact on the future of food....

Sheila Dillon is joined by a panel at Abergavenny Food Festival to ask - why is food costing so much more than it used to, and what would it take to build a food system that works better for everyone? Food prices in the UK have risen dramatically in recent years, while healthier food remains out of reach for many families. At the same time, farmers, growers and food businesses say they are struggl...

Each year The BBC Food & Farming Awards celebrates food producers who are going above and beyond to create delicious and sustainable food. They are examples of how food can be a force for good, improving our local areas, health and environment. In this programme judges Sheila Dillon and Paula McIntyre meet the three finalists and announce the whole of this year's Awards shortlist.

Dan Saladino visits the annual Oxford Food Symposium and explores its theme of 'poverty food'. Stories told at the event ranged from the historic links between breadfruit and the slave trade and the cooking demos organised for the poorest families in Edwardian London. We also hear about the oldest known cookbook to feature recipes for people in poverty, dating back to 14th century Persia. How has...

On BBC Radio 4 we’re marking the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in London by exploring the impact of the Norman invasion. In this programme, food historian Dr Annie Gray travels to Normandy to investigate how the Norman Conquest changed what we eat and drink. The Normans crossed the English Channel with new cheeses, different varieties of apple to make cider and introduced rabbits to our table. An...

School food is back in the spotlight, and as governments across the UK look to improve what children eat, what does it actually take to change a school meals service? Jaega Wise spends a day with Andrew Cowan, Catering Manager at Bury Council, whose team serves around 10,000 meals a day across more than 50 schools. From Manchester's wholesale produce market to Elton High School, she follows the pe...

"One day we will eat with a knife and fork." As they were growing up, it's a phrase Ify Adenuga repeated to her children, including the grime artists Skepta and JME. The saying would later inspire the title of Skepta's 2026 album Fork & Knife, which he has described as being rooted in the immigrant mindset, aspiration and the belief that hard work might one day deliver a better life. In this e...

Dan Saladino meets this year's collection of musicians from around the world who are cooking as they perform at the WOMAD festival. What do their dishes reveal about global food history? Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

There are many ways to age a cheese so how best to refine its flavours over time? Welcome to the art of affinage - a French term that translates as "refining" a cheese - and a practice that is starting to take off in the UK. Sheila Dillon attends a competition to find the Affineur of the Year and discovers that the way you age a cheese can dramatically change its taste and texture. A cheddar can b...

Since January 2025, thousands of tonnes of common octopus, usually found in the Mediterranean, have been landed by fisherman off the south coast of England. But it’s still not a regular feature on UK menus. In this episode of the Food Programme, Jaega Wise heads to Brixham fish market to find out more about what’s happening, and visits seafood restaurants taking alternative approaches to the chall...

Leyla Kazim revisits some of The Food Programme's most memorable stories to ask: what happened next? From 500kg of eels stranded in a holding tank in Gloucestershire and English olive oil being pressed in Lincolnshire, to the future of halloumi in Cyprus following an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease, and the impact of global politics on vegetables grown in Africa for UK consumers. Leyla returns...

Cacao prices broke all records and then crashed, Dan Saladino explores the fallout for farmers and the chocolate industry with Jack Thompson reporting from the Ivory Coast. Produced and presented by Dan Saladino

They’re in your chocolate, your gelato, even your coffee - pistachios seem to be everywhere at the moment - bolstered by the craze for Dubai Chocolate. In this episode Leyla Kazim asks what happens when the world seems to fall in love with one ingredient. She explores how the United States came to overtake traditional producers in the Middle East to become the world's largest pistachio grower, and...

Chef and broadcaster Romy Gill heads to the pavilion to explore cricket's relationship with food. She discovers that the supposedly British institution of the cricket tea was in fact a tradition imported from Australia in the 1880s. She visits Lord's - the Home of Cricket - and is given access to the kitchens to watch tea being prepared as well as receiving a tour of the Lord's museum to look thro...

Why did obesity become a global problem? Professor of Diet and Population Health Susan Jebb explores a heavy history, our changing relationship with food and reasons for optimism. She believes we live in an 'ultra-processed food system' which drives more of the world's population towards health harming diets and a lifetime of being overweight or obese. But she also believes change is possible, and...

Fifteen years after her cancer diagnosis, Sheila Dillon asks what role food could play in cancer treatment, prevention and recovery - and why it is still so often overlooked. Earlier this year, the Government published a new 10-year National Cancer Plan for England, aiming to save 320,000 lives and ensure three in four people survive at least five years after diagnosis by 2035. It’s been welcomed...

Sheila Dillon heads out on the highway to investigate the world of food at motorway service stations. Historically they have been a place viewed as a functional stop-off for a "tea and a pee" and often maligned for the quality of their food. Motorway services enthusiast Dr David Lawrence from Kingston University talks through a short history of the Great British service station from Watford Gap an...

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 try...

The food industry is predicting double digit inflation and are calling on the Government to act. Dan Saladino asks what lies behind the gloomy forecast, who will be most affected by price increases and if anything can be done to avoid the worst case scenario? Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

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,...

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...

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...

Dan Saladino reports from Parabere Forum, a gathering of food storytellers, featuring Olia Hercules on the Ukrainian cooks who inspired her, indigenous Australian chef Mindy Woods on saving First Nations' cuisine and Palestinian writer Fidaa Abuhamdiya with a powerful story of olive trees and oil from the West Bank. Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

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 t...

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 an...