Professor Tim Lang

Tim Lang is Emeritus Professor of Food Policy at City St George’s, University of London, and founding Director of the Centre for Food Policy established in 1994 as a leading centre for research and education on food system dynamics. His research and scholarship focuses on the intersections of health, environment, politics, and society within modern food systems.

Over a career spanning nearly five decades, Tim has been a leading voice in research, policy and public debate on food systems, sustainability, public health, and global food security. He has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization, including auditing the Global Top 25 Food Companies (2005) on food and health, and to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, where he co-chaired the 2010 expert consultation on sustainable diets. He has also been a special advisor to four UK House of Commons Select Committee inquiries on food standards, globalisation, and obesity.

Following the UK’s 2016 Brexit vote, Tim’s work focused closely on the structure and vulnerabilities of the UK food system, culminating in Feeding Britain (2020). In recent years, his work has increasingly focused on civil food resilience and societal preparedness for systemic food shocks. His report Just in Case was published by the UK National Preparedness Commission in February 2025.

Professor Lang is the author of numerous books and reports, including  Food Wars (2015), Food Policy (2009), and The Atlas of Food (2003/2008), emphasising the societal and political dimensions of food security, the fragility of global supply chains, and strategies for mitigating systemic risk in modern food systems.