BBC Food Programme presenter Sheila Dillon has spent four decades establishing food as an important, newsworthy subject and breaking big political stories through the lens of food. Today, she says, investigative food journalism has never been more necessary.
Sophie Lovell: You are so respected for your role in establishing food as an important, newsworthy subject. What led you to food journalism in the first place?
Sheila Dillon: It was a Damascene moment. I was a journalist in New York, freelancing for Conde Nast in the days when they were interested in feminism and women’s health. One morning, I was feeding my young son and reading a story in the New York Times about a pesticide incident on Long Island. The pesticide that was most commonly used on potatoes then, aldicarb, had seeped into the island’s aquifer, and some communities had had their wells closed because it was seen as a danger. And I thought, if it’s seeped into the water, then what about the potatoes?
I was mashing potatoes into things to feed my son at the time, so I went to look at what the pesticide regulations were. Aldicarb is supposed to have a half-life of 100 days, but it clearly did not. In fact, aldicarb has since been banned in most countries because it causes deaths and extreme sickness. It was a real revelation to me, because although I was quite a political person, I had this naive idea that the US and Europe had a fair system for monitoring and safeguarding food.
I had this naive idea that the US and Europe had a fair system for monitoring and safeguarding food.
I went on to look at pesticide residue limits, and it turned out they are based on research done by the pesticide companies themselves and that the decisions about the amount of chemicals used on crops were based on very crude data. I was so shocked. Then I thought, well, who’s writing about this? And the answer was not many people, so I thought, well, I’m a journalist, I’ll do it.
Orlando Lovell: And then you ended up at the BBC?
Sheila Dillon: After a few months of learning more about food systems, I wrote a column, Food Biz, monitoring the doings of the global food companies for a New York City-based magazine called Food Monitor. Then we moved back to the UK, where there was hardly anything being written about the politics of food. I listened to the BBC’s Food Programme with Derek Cooper, and I thought that’s where I ought to work. But it took a long time; they didn’t just open their arms to me.
Sophie Lovell: But you did eventually get a job as a reporter for the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme in 1987, and then later became a producer and presenter. That’s nearly 40 years that you’ve been there now, which is really impressive. How has the understanding and reporting of food changed in that time? And at the BBC generally?
Sheila Dillon: On the whole, it’s much more informal. Early on, you were meant to keep yourself out of the story, always. And now, the move has been to make yourself part of the story, to emotionally touch your audience.
When I joined the BBC, it was at a difficult time, just post-Thatcher, who had been trying to dismantle it. But the BBC was still really tough about standing up for you legally when you did difficult stories. And now, how can I put this? The BBC means a great deal to me, and I’m a great admirer of it, but now, people are much more cautious about addressing hard political issues. I mean, we still do it! We won some awards with our programme about Gaza in the first year after Israel’s attack on Palestine. And so they do support you, but it’s a much more painful process.
I remember we did a story in 1990 I think about margarine and spreads, and Unilever threatened to sue the BBC, saying our research was shoddy, and that the scientists we spoke to had done shoddy research.
I remember we did a story in 1990, I think, about margarine and spreads, and Unilever threatened to sue the BBC, saying our research was shoddy, and that the scientists we spoke to had done shoddy research. Back then, you just had to call up the BBC solicitor who would look through the programme and go, “You’re fine, don’t worry about it.” But the constant barrage of attacks on the BBC by the right-wing press over decades, and the Farage-isation of the political conversation, has made everybody much more cautious, and that’s what’s changed, but we still do our best. That programme, in fact, went on to win a Glaxo Science Writer’s award.
Sophie Lovell: Would you say there has been a change of emphasis in the BBC Food Programme’s reporting over time, in relation to areas like women’s rights, colonialism, the climate emergency, or Big Ag, for example?
Sheila Dillon: Well, Big Ag has always been in my sights, but I think I’m much more aware, when we approach a subject, of asking things like: What does this mean in terms of effect on the climate? Or: What is the link between diet and public health? There’s been such a disastrous decline in public health since I started doing this reporting, which often makes me wonder what the point of it all is, really. I think you now go to a story with much more awareness of the complexity of what you’re addressing, the different audiences, the history and, yes, colonialism. Wouldn’t you agree, Sophie?
I think you now go to a story with much more awareness of the complexity of what you’re addressing, the different audiences, the history and, yes, colonialism.
Sophie Lovell: Totally, I feel like I’ve done more relearning in the last 10 years than I did in my first 30 years.
Sheila Dillon: But that’s what makes it exciting. You know, most of my producers are way younger than I am, and it’s so fascinating to try to understand how they see the world, what they take for granted, and that makes me, like you, question some of my assumptions. And yes, I have to think, and be modest and humble, and, you know, all those things that don’t come naturally.
Orlando Lovell: I appreciate this from a younger perspective as well. Sophie and I have been working together for several years, and for me, it’s really important to see and hear what has come before, or that things often happen in cycles. I think this intergenerational exchange is so important. I remember when Leyla Kasim joined the Food Programme as a presenter, and I really enjoyed the dynamic shift in the whole team with all its different voices.
Sheila Dillon: It’s been tremendously enriching having four presenters. I think that’s one of the best things that’s happened.
Orlando Lovell: That was around 2019, wasn’t it? What was the impetus for that change?
Sheila Dillon: The BBC was going through this period of being pushed politically to put more of its programmes out for tender, and the Food Programme was one of them. So we had to bid to produce it along with others. It made us really think about what we were, who our audience was, and what we were doing. Out of that came this quartet of voices, and I think it’s been terrific.
Sophie Lovell: Let’s talk about the ecosystem of food reporting at the BBC, and how they interconnect – if at all. Radio 4’s Farming Today, for example, which has been running since the 1960s, or the Food Chain over at the BBC World Service, which is only a decade or so old. Do you all talk to each other and discuss who will focus on which issues?
Sheila Dillon: When I started at the Food Programme, the farming unit was on the same floor in Broadcasting House, so we were wandering in and out of each other’s offices. That’s how we ended up doing some of the earlier stories about mad cow disease [BSE] in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, because one of Farming Today’s producers had read a piece in the Veterinary Record about that first cow going mad. So, long before the news picked up on this, we did a programme about it. To be physically in the same place makes a huge difference.
When I started at the Food Programme, the farming unit was on the same floor in Broadcasting House, so we were wandering in and out of each other’s offices.
Nowadays, I live in London, and the Food Programme team is in Bristol. And, post-lockdown, there’s only one day a week when people are in the office. There is an interchange with the farming unit, but sadly, we really don’t have much to do with the Food Chain. When I say it out loud, it seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? I mean, I do listen to the Food Chain, and we do catch up at the Food & Farming Awards, but it is slightly bonkers, because, as part of the World Service, they have access to stringers and reporters in countries that we find quite hard to get to. So the answer is: not as much as we should really.
Orlando Lovell: Talking of the Food & Farming Awards, which launched in 2000 and has become quite a national institution, what was the reason for their creation?
Sheila Dillon: We had a very interesting editor at the time, Graham Ellis, who’s now on the board of the BBC, but back then was also an investigative journalist. The two of us were talking about how we could go beyond the Radio 4 audience and cast more light on some of these people who were doing remarkable things in the food world. He said, If you can get somebody really famous involved for the first one, we could have an annual awards event. The actor Stephen Fry happened to have written Derek Cooper a big fan letter, and then someone else suggested how to reach Prince Charles through his private secretary.
So, Derek and I headed to High Grove to some event that we got ourselves invited to, and met this woman, the private secretary, who told us how to approach him. And that’s how Prince Charles ended up giving a speech and Stephen Fry hosting the first event. The Awards are about casting light on all these people doing transformational things that are completely under the media radar, which is what we’ve continued to do. We’ve fought off attempts to make it more glitzy and pop…although we do put on our sequins and ask people from all parts of the food world to be on stage and hand out the prizes. We’ve adapted a bit, but we haven’t changed the main purpose, which is that those prizes are for people who make great food but also, crucially, change society.
I think more people do understand what is involved in producing good food, having it available, and what effects it has on the planet.
Sophie Lovell: Do you think that the contextual understanding of food has changed for listeners? Are they now also perceiving food production and consumption as part of deeply complex and entangled systems?
Sheila Dillon: I think they are. The conversation 20 years ago seemed to be more between specialists, and now it is a much wider group of people. But at the same time, we’ve got much grosser levels of inequality and a lack of social movement that cuts people off from being part of that. I think more people do understand what is involved in producing good food, having it available, and what effects it has on the planet. But then I look at how around 93 per cent of food in Britain comes via the big supermarkets and how up to 70 per cent of the diet of some UK teenagers is UPF [ultra-processed food] and realise that change is very slow in some areas.
Orlando Lovell: What are you most proud of in your food reporting career so far?
Sheila Dillon: I suppose if I’m proud of anything, it’s standing up in times past when there was a push for us to be part of the whole food as entertainment business. Of course, we make programmes that are about the pleasures of food, one I made recently with producer Sophie Anton on the creativity of chefs in their kitchens during hard economic times is an example. The Food Programme would never have the audience it does if we were constantly haranguing them. We try never to harangue!
I suppose if I’m proud of anything, it’s standing up in times past when there was a push for us to be part of the whole food as entertainment business.
Various producers keep in check my Roman-Catholic-childhood-based inclination to take the moral high ground. But whatever we’re doing, the reality of food – who owns these companies, what’s their agenda, what’s in it for them, what’s the effect on public health, what effect does this have on farmers and on climate – is the background to how we work. Along the lines of “That’s a very tasty chicken…where did it come from? How much more expensive is it than one in a supermarket? (remembering that the price of food isn’t reflected in the price at the till) and so on.
I mean, it’s easier for us in a way, because the stories we do are about food, and therefore the very high-ups don’t think it really matters. They don’t notice what we do in a way. There is still this slight incomprehension that we would ask big political questions through the lens of the food system.
There is still this slight incomprehension that we would ask big political questions through the lens of the food system.
Another thing I’m quite proud of is spotlighting the connection between food, diet and cancer. Some time ago, when I was the senior producer on the programme, my sister had a serious form of breast cancer and decided she would use diet and lifestyle changes to help her recover. Her doctors said she was signing her death warrant. My sister’s fine now, but it raised questions for me – I was frightened by what she’d decided to do. But her decision coincided with a World Cancer Fund report saying that in areas of the world where diets are based on fresh food, cancer rates are much lower than in areas where people eat highly processed food. I thought that if this is true, then what difference would a diet like that make in preventing the recurrence of cancer in people who already have it?
So, we rang various cancer research places in the UK, and they were just contemptuous. Of course, diet had nothing to do with cancer, they said, of course, it would make no difference; what a stupid question. Well, we made a programme about it anyway, and it turned out it wasn’t a stupid question. Research has since shown that a good diet has a profound effect on our microbiome which, in turn, affects our immune system.
This experience showed me how established systems of thought become so rigid and defensive. I’m glad I stuck to that question, made a series of programmes about it, and that now it’s become a much more common topic, because this is not just a cancer issue, it’s about all of public health.
I’m glad I stuck to that question, made a series of programmes about it, and that now it’s become a much more common topic, because this is not just a cancer issue, it’s about all of public health.
Orlando Lovell: What an amazing time it must have been to be able to do the BBC Food Programme! Over the last 30 years, so much has changed in science and understanding, in the spaces we can occupy as women, the questions we can ask, and in being able to use food to access difficult subjects. With the whole team of reporters that you have now, and with the diversity of questions being asked and topics looked at, I feel very hopeful that you are reinforcing the depth and knowledge that one can gain by looking at the world and its systems through food.
Sheila Dillon: Well, I should say we don’t have exactly a “team” of reporters – three part-time presenters (including me, who makes 18 programmes a year) plus a very, very good journalist, Dan Saladino, a BBC staffer who both presents and produces his own programmes. Plus 2 1/2 smart producers – who stay with us for long periods and now really understand the food world. The general BBC policy of moving producers around from programme to programme doesn’t work with us – you have to understand the industry, the policy, the connections.
The last 30 years have seen enormous change. Sometimes I listen to a podcast and realise that they are saying what we were saying 25 years ago. And I think, well, if they’re saying that now, what are we supposed to be doing? How do we keep pushing understanding? One thing I didn’t see clearly all those years ago was how women, through the roles they have played, are much more able to see our disconnection from nature, and to understand how damaging this idea that we could conquer nature and make it live by our rules has been. Women farmers now are a hotbed of ideas and action – they’re changing things.
One thing I didn’t see clearly all those years ago was how women, through the roles they have played, are much more able to see our disconnection from nature
Orlando Lovell: That leads well into our last question: where would you like to see food reporting go, and are there other topics or media you’d like to see developed further?
Sheila Dillon: I’d like food to be taken more seriously in news and current affairs. In various media outlets, food is always seen as a bit of a laugh, somehow. And if it is reported, then badly. There’s very little insightful reporting about food in the traditional media. One of the things we’re trying to do at the Food Programme is get ourselves invited to news programme meetings, to listen to those teams and try to show them that food stories are often serious, absorbing and exciting political stories.
The rise and spread of private equity has been a great disaster for the world, and for the food system in particular.
The traditional media rarely report on the ownership of food companies. But there are an increasing number of online organisations and podcasters who do ask those questions. Wicked Leeks, for example, is an outgrowth of the Riverford organic food company, and does some very good reporting. Table is another remarkable organisation with podcasts, writing and research.
If you read the business press, you will know what private equity is. Read/ watch/listen to food media, and you will almost never see it mentioned. Private equity companies are buying supermarkets, food manufacturers and supply chains of all sorts, but they have no interest in them as food businesses. The rise and spread of private equity has been a great disaster for the world, and for the food system in particular. For them, whether it’s armaments or food retailing, it’s all the same; They’re in the business of maximising returns on their investments, globally – everything else is irrelevant.
Food is a pleasure, I wouldn’t have got into this if I didn’t like eating, but it’s also a serious subject. As Carolyn Steel says, food is everything; food totally shapes the world.
And then there’s the gap between what we know about the deep damage that ultra-processed foods do and the policy governing them. UPFs are everywhere. The food industry is just really clever at lobbying.
I mean, I want people to take pleasure in food, because it’s useless if you’re always just wagging your finger, isn’t it? Food is a pleasure. I wouldn’t have got into this if I didn’t like eating, but it’s also a serious subject. As Carolyn Steel says, food is everything; food totally shapes the world.
Sheila Dillon is a British food journalist and broadcaster best known as the long-standing presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, a role she has held since 2001. Over the course of her career, she has established food as a serious journalistic subject, breaking major political stories through the lens of food and championing the importance of investigative food journalism. A passionate advocate for the relationship between food, health, and society, she is one of the most influential voices in British food media.
