Everything you need to know about farmwashing

Walking up and down supermarket aisles, UK consumers might be forgiven for thinking their weekly trolley is being filled with produce reared or grown in Britain.

The reality, they might be shocked to learn, is that much of the fresh produce perched underneath Union Jack signage, or labelled with the name of a rustic-sounding smallholding, is anything but local.

Farmwashing is big business, and it continues to be a thorn in the side of small to medium farming enterprises, who say they are being, effectively, pushed out of the industry. Around three-quarters of fruit and vegetables consumed in the UK, for example, are imported, with the Government’s own food security report (published in December 2024) showing that domestic production of vegetables between 2021 and 2023 decreased by a significant 13% as large retailers look abroad to trim margins.

Riverford Organic Farmers was the first major voice to speak out against farmwashing, setting up Farmers Against Farmwashing to lobby for, and inspire others to lobby for, change. Riverford’s research amongst both farmers and consumers on the issue is stark. Sixty-seven per cent of shoppers said they felt distrustful when they discovered supermarkets could use the word ‘farm’ freely, and 74% said they wanted supermarkets to be more transparent with them, while 65% of farmers want clearer legislation around labelling, and 62% believe their farm is at financial risk.

Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford (pictured above), says he has a ‘bee in his bonnet’ around honesty. Particularly the honesty surrounding the marketing of food. Without honesty in the system, he says, “We have no hope of addressing our environmental problems.”

It is time, he adds, to hold those clutching the threads of power, to account.

What is farmwashing?

Guy says farmwashing amounts, in simple terms, to retailers misleading shoppers by creating fake farm brands, and pushing them on-label or through other levels of marketing. He says he finds the way this is accepted is “bizarre”, and that he struggles to come to terms with the fact it’s legal in Britain. 

Made up farm names conjure a romantic narrative for consumers, who ‘fill in the blanks’, imagining, he says, a farmer out in the fields, or tending to a herd of cows at sunrise.

Some of what’s labelled in this way may, he admits, comes from British producers, but the reality is it “almost certainly won’t come from small family farms”.

“What do we mean by family farms? I would say it’s where the farmer has mud on their wellies and actually goes out and does something, probably with other family members, as opposed to sitting in an office and being an investor.”

The reason large retailers create faux farm brands is because, Guys says, “The British public clearly want to support that sort of farm. They wouldn’t be doing it if that wasn’t the case. Wouldn’t it be lovely if supermarkets actually supported those farms, rather than creating their own fake versions?”

One of the worst offenders for both farmwashing and Britishwashing, he adds, is the pork industry. “I think if it’s packed, processed or cured in the UK you can put a Union Jack on it, when a lot of it actually comes from the continent where there is an environmental crisis associated with production.”

“Also, if you go into any supermarket, particularly over the last year, there have been Union Jacks everywhere, whereas with fruit, only 15% of it’s grown in the UK.”

This is a food system, he continues, that feels like “the Wild West”.

Barnes Edwards, director of The Garlic Farm, says this is “real abuse”. “It needs to be highlighted because those that are pushing it are absolutely doing one over on the community. Not just customers, but the people producing food in the supply chain.”

Calling out bad practice, he continues, is important for awareness. “The control and power is with a few, and those few are doing a lot that’s bad.”

Products that aren’t from the UK or are labelled as coming from a traditional-sounding farm, are ubiquitous in Britain today, says Nature Friendly Farming Network CEO Martin Lines, but it’s not always obvious. “A lot of people aren’t aware it goes on. They see a label and a title, and it gives the impression it’s better for you. Supermarkets are expert at this. They spend huge amounts to make you walk around picking up things they want to sell to you, while you pick up the things you want.”

What impact does farmwashing have on farmers and consumers?

Farmwashing, ultimately, undermines the farming industry, Barnes says passionately. “It doesn’t tell the truth. It misleads. It brings in pseudo-familiarity.”

Farming is essential, and a fundamental part of being human, he adds, but we’re “just messing that up and inventing it, and giving things names. It’s just not going to work long term.”

From Guy’s perspective, the practice denies farmers the opportunity to differentiate themselves. Even if they’re aligning with consumer values, such as higher animal welfare, better standards for their staff, and a more biodiverse, healthier growing system, the reality is the majority are priced out of the market. It’s the opposite, he says of a free market which, “relies on perfect knowledge for buyers and sellers”.

Martin is concerned that large corporations will cause further damage to small and medium-sized British farms in future. “If you look at what’s coming down the line with environmental goals, climate goals, carbon reporting and biodiversity impact reporting, corporations will need to know the emissions in their food systems and what’s happening on-farm. I think they will try to take the benefits, pushing the farmers to do their balance sheets. We saw that in the Green Tractor push a year or two ago.”

There is a worry, Martin contnues, that large businesses will try to take a ‘cut’ of farmers’ carbon savings for their reporting, without paying any more for their products.

Concerns have also been raised over the lack of food producing farmers based in Britain, partly in response to multiples favouring imports. This poses a huge threat to the future of the UK’s food security. “That’s the biggest problem. They’ll say, ‘I get paid more to produce land for butterflies and bees than food’.”

Guy is angered by the way consumers are being “hoodwinked”, and says that issues such as farmwashing make shoppers more cynical, “to the detriment of everything that does matter”.

“Longer term, what this is doing is snuffing out any hope of there being a more diverse, human scale, environmentally sensitive form of agriculture in this country. And it’s denying the customer of any choice. There won’t be anything different. Choice is almost gone in pigs, there are very few small poultry producers, it’s very quickly going in dairy, and it’s pretty much gone in the veg. The veg industry is dominated by a few very very large players now. I would say 80% of vegetables sold to supermarkets go through less than 10 companies in the UK. It might be as low as six.

What needs to change in the system?

Martin would like to see a food and trade system that standardises what we eat. “We import cars, but we make sure they’ve got brakes and seatbelts. At the moment we’re importing food produced at lower standards than we’re legally allowed to have here because it’s cheaper. We see a lot of this going into the hospitality system where there’s no labelling and consumers don’t see it in its raw format.”

BSI, the UK’s national standards body is, Martin believes, working towards some kind of ‘kitemark’. “And that’s what we need. We need to lift our values up and demonstrate what good looks like. There are a lot of shortcuts going on, and unless we raise standards and enforce them, big businesses are going to get around them. I’m hoping we can encourage the Government to do more.”

Any form of labelling change or standard won’t be voluntary, Guys adds, and if it does happen, it must shift the power balance between farmers and supermarkets, so farmers get fairer access to market. In his area of expertise, fruit and vegetables, Guy says profit to farmers in the UK during his lifetime has fallen from 40% of the retail price, to around 25%. “It’s fallen relentlessly, at a time where the proportion of GDP we spend on food has also fallen. You multiply those two together and you get to a pretty awful situation of farmers driving that consolidation and race to the bottom.”

How do we support them? “It’s not going to be easy. Clear labelling would give them power. I would love to see that it was illegal to wilfully mislead the public in any way. That would be a very fundamental change that I would support very strongly.”

In the meantime there is the Grocery Code Adjudicator, which he feels needs to be “beefed up” and extended. 

“I’m told by people who supply supermarkets that it has removed some of the most appalling trading practices and some of the worst abuses, however it has institutionalised the price negotiation, and it only applies to those who actually supply the supermarkets.”

Guy says within his sector he feels the Code should be amended to include the relationships between packers, processers and farmers. “But that’s going to require a lot more resource.” At a time when we want cheap food. 

“It’s not going to be easy, but I think the farmers do enjoy a huge amount of support from the public. We’ve got to use that better.”

What should buyers look out for?

If you’re a speciality food business worried about the provenance of your fresh produce, the first port of call is to thoroughly investigate your suppliers for yourself. Getting it right enables you to fly the flag for your shoppers on traceability, and to know that if something is labelled as British, or from a certain farm, it does what it says on the box.

Barnes says you could take that a step further by looking for organic or B Corp certified products which “cannot be farmwashed or greenwashed”.

“You cannot fudge it. You are either certified organic or you’re not. It’s binary and rigorous. Similarly, with B Corp, if you don’t hit the score, you’re not ‘in’. These things are not just some wafty marketing spiel, they mean something. That the people involved care about nature, and care about people and their impact on animal health, and climate health and community health.”

Speciality retailers such as farm shops and delis are “great” at delivering an honest product, Barnes adds. “It’s a strong community that tends to be really informed. The curiosity is there, and there are good relationships between producers and retailers.

“We might not all know each other personally, but definitely speciality retailers stay attuned to what is being done well, however they interpret that.”