CASE STUDY

The National Food Strategy

How PLMR helped launch the biggest review of the nation’s food system in a generation.

Client

National Food Strategy / DEFRA

The Situation

The National Food Strategy is a once in a generation review of the UK’s entire food system, from field to fork. It was commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and led by Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of Leon Restaurants. PLMR was responsible for all communications around Part One of the Strategy, including creating a website and social media channels, stakeholder engagement, and media relations.

What we did

We engaged with a wide range of organisations across the English food system, securing support for and maximising the reach of the Strategy. These ranged from farmers and importers to suppliers, manufacturers and food transporters, supermarkets and restaurants, government agencies and research academics, all through to public health, sustainability and animal rights organisations.

Through every phase of the National Food Strategy, we engaged in both proactive and reactive media work, using imaginative story creation to raise the profile of the Strategy through national, regional and sector press coverage, including numerous live broadcast interviews.

The Result

The Strategy lead the national news agenda on the day of launch, including over 70,000 impressions from the National Food Strategy account on Twitter. #FoodStrategy was trending at number 26 in the UK during the launch event. Ultimately, our communications work helped to demonstrate the widespread support for the Strategy’s recommendations, setting the foundations for the policy changes expressed in the final report, published in July 2021.

PLMR worked with the DEFRA team right up to publication, updating the website and online branding to reflect the report’s final form and design.

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