The Food Chain

When it comes to food, we have a lot more than honey to thank bees for - more than three quarters of the world’s food crops depend, at least in part, on pollinators. But bee populations, we often hear, are under threat, and that’s largely due to human behaviour.Emily Thomas speaks to three beekeepers about the challenges of making money from honey and the complicated relationship between the human and the honey bee.If we look carefully into the hive, she discovers, bees can teach us much about the environment, society and ourselves.Producer: Simon TulettContributors:Joan Kinyanjui, Yatta Beekeepers, Nairobi; Dale Gibson, Bermondsey Street Bees, London; Ian Steppler, Steppler Farms, Manitoba.If you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk(Picture: A honey bee on the end of a human finger. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)

When you’re competing in a round-the-world race and you have to take all your food with you, what do you bring and how do you cook it?If you’re scrambling up and down mountains for days on end, or swimming across an entire ocean, how do you find the time to eat, and what can you stomach? Tamasin Ford speaks to three extreme endurance athletes about the planning, practicalities and monotony of these gruelling events. Is food simply fuel, or can it power competitors in other ways?Producer: Simon TulettContributors:Dee Caffari; Billy White; Benoit LecomteIf you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk(Picture: A runner in the 2019 Marathon des Sables race. Credit: Erik Sampers/Gamma-Rapho/Getty/ BBC)

Do you need a lemon right now but don’t want to leave the house? Just download an app and you’ll have it in 13 minutes. That’s the kind of service you can expect from a swathe of new ‘rapid delivery’ grocery apps. Dozens have appeared around the world since the start of the pandemic, and investors have been flocking to invest, pumping billions into the sector. So are these apps the obvious next step in our on-demand lifestyles, or should they be a cause for concern? When it comes to food, can things become just a bit too convenient? Tamasin Ford hears from one company boss with big ambitions and a former competition lawyer who’s worried these apps could spell the end for smaller food stores. Plus, we travel to Istanbul in Turkey where people have already been using them for years. (Picture: Man sat on sofa groceries being handed to him. Credit: Getty/BBC)If you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.ukContributors:Alec Dent: Co-Founder, Weezy Kaya Genç: Novelist Michelle Meagher: Founder, Balanced Economy Project

When chef Jamie Oliver launched a campaign to improve British school meals, it inspired one headteacher to take things much further.Charlton Manor Primary School, in south London, now grows its own produce, keeps bees and chickens, and has a restaurant aiming for a Michelin star. Head Tim Baker has also overhauled the teaching curriculum to put food centre stage - from learning about fair trade banana growers in geography lessons to slicing pizzas to help with fractions.Tamasin Ford speaks to teachers and students to find out how they did it, and asks whether this could act as a model for how to teach our children about food's impact on our health and the planet.Producer: Simon TulettIf you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk(Picture: Students Sarah and Vaidas in the garden at Charlton Manor Primary School)Contributors:Students at Charlton Manor Primary School; Joe Grollman, teaching chef; Nick Shelley, gardener; Flavio Hernandez, head chef; Tim Baker, headteacher; Kim Smith, TastEd and City, University of London; Dennis Hollywood, teacher

The celebrated French chef Raymond Blanc tells Emily Thomas about his life through five dishes.From a childhood roaming magical forests in Eastern France, to the rather less enticing restaurant scene of 1970s England, Raymond describes how with little grasp of the language and no formal training, he quickly became one of the UK’s best known chefs. His restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, has been thriving for almost 40 years and during that time he has added a string of cookbooks, TV shows and brasseries to his name. Raymond explains how he balances being a gastronome and perfectionist with running a large business.But we also hear another side to the exuberant chef. The past year has been perhaps one the most difficult of Raymond’s life - closing his restaurants, the isolation of lockdown, the death of his mother and being hospitalised with coronavirus for a month. He tells us why he thinks it will make him a better man.

Meet the unsung heroes of your kitchen drawers.When you hold a vegetable peeler or potato masher, do you ever think about the person behind it? We celebrate chefs and cookbook writers - but what about the people who make the tools that make it all easier?Emily Thomas meets three product designers who explain the thinking behind the everyday objects we keep in our kitchens. We’ll hear about accessibility and segregation - but also art and beauty. Welcome to the philosophy of kitchen gadgets.Contributors: Dan Formosa, Scott Jarvie, and Gavin Reay.

The Food Chain delves into the world of ‘Ultra-Processed Food’ - a term coined in Brazil that has been provoking debate around the world.Ultra Processed Food is a term that encompasses a broad range of common products from industrialised bread to breakfast cereals to chocolate bars. A growing body of evidence points to an association between their consumption and negative health outcomes including obesity, over-eating, depression, heart disease, and type-2 diabetes. Countries like Brazil are so concerned they are recommending people avoid UPFs all together. But in some of the world's most developed economies these foods make up, up to 80% of our diets, whilst the public understands very little about them. Emily Thomas speaks to representatives from the food industry and people at the forefront of the science into UPFs to try to find out whether this is just another dietary buzzword that muddies the waters when it comes to improving the nation’s diets - OR whether it’s something we should ALL be talking about.(Picture; Cookie talking in chocolate chips, Credit: BBC/Getty)If you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.ukContributors:Gyorgy Scrinis: Associate professor of Food Politics and Policy, University of Melbourne Maria Laura Louzada: Assistant professor, Department of Nutrition at the University of Sao Paulo Kevin Hall: Senior investigator, National Institutes of Health, Maryland Kate Halliwell: Chief Scientific Officer, Food and Drink Federation, UK

Gene editing could revolutionise agriculture, with some scientists promising healthier and more productive crops and animals, but will consumers want to eat them? With the first gene edited crops recently approved for sale, Emily Thomas hears why this technology might be quicker, cheaper and more accurate than the older genetic engineering techniques that produced GMOs, and asks whether these differences could make it more acceptable to a deeply sceptical, even fearful public.Some are not convinced by the claims, and there are concerns that current regulations won't protect consumers or the environment from any potential risks. By putting their faith in technology, have scientists and companies overlooked other simpler solutions to our food security problems?Producer: Simon TulettIf you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk(Picture: A DNA model on a plate. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)Contributors:Jennifer Kuzma, North Carolina State University; Hiroshi Ezura, University of Tsukuba and Sanatech Seed; Neth Daño, ETC Group; Philippe Dumont, Calyxt

In an illustrious career spanning three decades, there’s little that booking-writing, seed-breading, ‘philosopher chef’ Dan Barber has not put his hands to. Celebrated as the poster child of the ‘farm to fork’ movement, he tells Graihagh Jackson how a visit to a wheat farm called into question everything he thought he knew about agriculture and changed his cooking and ethos forever. Surprisingly though, Dan started life wanting to be a writer not a chef. Through five dishes, we hear how a failed stint as a baker, a baptism of fire in french kitchens and running a company from a mice-infested kitchen eventually won him over to the cause. We learn that an obsession with simplicity and flavour has taken him on a farming odyssey around the world, what coronavirus can teach us about the future of food, and how it all started with a humble dish of scrambled eggs.If you would like to get in touch please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk(Picture: Chef Dan Barber. Credit: Richard Bolls/BBC)

Three people who lost their vision as adults tell Emily Thomas how they learnt to cook again, becoming so accomplished in the kitchen that they became restaurateurs, cookbook writers, food podcast makers and Masterchef winners. They explain how their relationships with food have changed, and why cooking with just four senses can make you a better chef. (Picture: Payal Kapoor, Simon Mahoney, Christine Hà. Credit: BBC/Julie Soefer Photography)If you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.ukContributors:Christine Hà, chef, writer and owner of ‘The Blind Goat’ restaurant Payal Kapoor, host of ‘Rasoi ke Rahasya’ YouTube channel Simon Mahoney, author ‘First Catch Your Rabbit!: Or Cooking Without Fear’