The Food Programme

In these hard economic times does a Private Members Bill introducing new standards for the food sourced by public bodies stand a chance of becoming law? Simon Parkes visits Nottinghamshire, where some hospital meals and all school dinners are procured this way, to look at what such a change might mean in practice. The Nottingham City Hospital has been sourcing sustainably for 7 years, buying its meat and vegetables from local farmers. Food is fresher, higher quality, and no more expensive, and now over half the money the hospital spends on food goes into the local economy, benefitting local suppliers like dairy wholesalers Transfresh, and butchers Owen Taylor.Also 7 years ago Nottinghamshire County Council began its process of sourcing its school meals food sustainably, and has now achieved Silver Standard under the Soil Association Food for Life Partnership scheme. Donna Baines, School Food Development Manager, met Simon in Maloney's butchers, which now supplies all their meat, with Alison Maloney and Jeanette Orrey, school meals campaigner, to discuss the impact of these changes on the food, their finances, and the threats posed by the current spending review. The service is currently being "market tested" with a view to potential privisation. Conservative Councillor Andy Stewart explains what that might mean.In the studio to discuss the Bill are Labour MP Joan Walley (Stoke on Trent North) who tabled the Private Members Bill; Tony Cooke Government Relations Director of catering service provider Sodexo; and Kath Dalmeny, Policy Director of Sustain, which runs the Good Food for Our Money campaign. Producer: Rebecca Moore.

What food do students have access to, what do they eat? Sheila Dillon investigates the catering provided for students across the country in these financially straightened times. She talks to industry expert Chris Druce about the big catering companies and their expansion into higher education. She visits a food co-op at the School of Oriental and African Studies; Dan Saladino visits Plymouth University on the day it hosts its first farmers market and talks to stall holders, students, and Slow Food UK about its efforts to enrol students in its philosophy and approach to food. And Professor Warren Belasco from the University of Maryland describes how there's nothing new about student activism around food - think 60s, the University of California at Berkeley, the counter culture.Producer: Lucinda Montefiore.

Sheila Dillon hears from the people attempting to revolutionise the sandwich. We're now seeing the rise of food businesses specialising in just one type of sandwich using authentic recipes from around the world. The food entrepreneurs are making everything from the Vietnamese Bahn Mi through to the Argentinean Lomito, all are sandwiches which rely on the makers finding authentic bread to match the original recipe. This development is being watched closely by the large sandwich manufacturers supplying the supermarkets. The prepared sandwich business is with £3bn a year and is based on developing new ideas. Dan Saladino follows some sandwiches through the supply chain. Sheila is also joined by the food writer Bee Wilson, the author of Sandwich: A Global History. Producer: Dan Saladino.

Scagglethorpe Queening, Ribston Pippin, the Wass - Simon Parkes meets those restoring the orcharding tradition of the north, from the walled community garden at Helmsley to the orchard village of Husthwaite, and samples some of the commercial fruits of these orchards including a new cider brandy from the orchards of Ampleforth Abbey. Dr Joan Morgan, apple expert and author of the seminal New Book of Apples, outlined many of the great northern varieties at the RHS London Autumn Harvest Show. Michael Jack, President of the National Fruit Show, and a BBC Food & Farming Awards judge, samples some of the orchard drinks: Cheshire Apple Juice from Eddisbury Fruit Farm, Husthwaite's cider, and Ampleforth's cider brandy. Producer: Rebecca Moore.

Sheila Dillon looks at some of the latest developments in airline food. The supply chain is beginning to open up and innovative producers from the north east of Britain have succeeded in winning contracts to supply leading airlines. One of these suppliers - 'Look What We Found' - has led the way in technology to deliver quality ambient food in a bag. They've converted this to a tray of food that can be heated and eaten during a flight. Gate Gourmet, one of the largest providers of airline catering in the world, has had its difficulties in recent years - strike action and radical restructuring. Now back on its feet it has just opened a new £10m production kitchen. Sheila Dillon visits the new facilities and sees for herself the challenges of feeding and pleasing millions of people a year consuming meals 30,000 feet up in the sky. producer: Lucinda Montefiore.

Sheila Dillon looks behind the scenes of the world's largest and smallest pasta factories. It's a difficult time as wheat prices are high and so competition for grain is fierce. Fires, droughts and speculation in the wheat market together with poor harvests of durum wheat is creating a rise in prices. Pasta producers all over the world compete for the best quality semolina, produced from the milled, high protein and low yielding durum crop.John Dickie, Professor of Italian Studies at University College London, outlines the rise and rise of pasta making in Italy dating back to the Middle Ages. Sicily had a large scale pasta export business dating back at least 1000 years but it wasn't until Italy's economic boom of the 1960's that pasta became a truly national dish.Reporter Dany Mintzman follows five tonnes of spaghetti as it travels along the production line of the world's largest pasta factory, owned by Barilla, a family owned business started in the 1870s.Farmers in the UK used to grow durum wheat when it was an EU subsidised crop. Although it is best suited to hot and dry weather conditions a lot of it was then used by British companies producing dried pasta for the supermarkets. That is no longer the case and the last factory selling mass market pasta stopped production in 2001, unable to compete with the vast scale of the Italian producers.However in Cornwall, one farmer, Charlie Watson-Smyth has spent the last two years trying to grow durum wheat and then turn it into pasta to sell in his farm shop. As reporter Dilly Barlow discovers it's been such a success that he's now supplying The Eden Project and restaurants around Padstow. Produced by Dan Saladino.

Northern Ireland's new Focus on Food policy, published earlier this summer, aims to put food at the heart of economic growth, and encourage value added, and quality, food production. While in the South the food revolution of the past 30 years created a plethora of innovative, quality food businesses to feed a burgeoning tourism sector, in the North the food and farming industries have been more commodity focused, and have lagged behind on the quality front. The Focus on Food strategy aims to provide expertise and support to stimulate the food and farming sectors, which, after the public sector, are the single biggest employers in the region. Sheila Dillon visits two new value-added businesses, the sorts of enterprise Focus on Food is designed to encourage: Mash Direct, selling a range of mashes and vegetable dishes fresh through the retailers and providing an economic future for the family, and Glastry Farm whose dairy herd provide the milk for their premium ice creams based around regional produce like Armagh Bramleys, and strawberries. She also talks to established artisan baker Robert Ditty. Is the government strategy enough to kick start quality food entrepreneurism in Northern Ireland? And in the era of public-sector cuts will the financial back-up be available?

Ice Cream : Everyone seems to like ice cream and with the market worth an incredible one billion pounds a year, it would seem to be recession-proof. This programme explores the market and the marketing. There has been an explosion in the number of artisan producers so how do they all compete? And what keeps the big players at the top of their game? What is real ice cream anyway? And, what is the difference between ice cream and gelato?Sheila Dillon presents the programme from one of the UK's best loved ice cream parlours and is joined by expert Robin Weir who has spent the last twelve years updating his book, "Ice Cream, Sorbets and Gelati" - co-authored with wife, Caroline, - and widely recognised as the definitive guide to ice cream.

Chef Mark Hix travels to Transylvania to help revive a disappearing food culture. From cheese making shepherds to pickle producers, he meets the people improving food in Romania. Producer: Dan Saladino.

Richard Johnson is on a mission to revive the fortunes of the British kebab.A life long lover of the world famous street food he's convinced that a more authentic kebab culture can flourish in Britain. On his travels he finds out how and why it became so popular here and where most of the UK's kebabs are made. Then, in order to understand the authentic techniques used in Turkish kebab making Richard travels to Istanbul and Bursa home of the Iskender kebab, a form of doner. Will the family run business share its secret recipes and methods and help revive the kebab's reputation in Britain? Produced by Dan Saladino.