Fairer ways to feed the UK

Most British people are too young to have enjoyed a meal at one of the UK’s civic restaurants, the last one closed in the 1960s. But what about a bary mleczny (Polish milk bar), a halk lokantasi (Turkish public restaurant), or a Singaporean hawker centre? 

In many places across the world, government-subsidised public diners are a cherished institution. Used by rich and poor alike, public diners allow everyone to access a nutritious, affordable meal in a clean, welcoming space. Those without the means to pay are often supported by concessionary schemes. 

This might seem like a foreign concept to us here in the UK. However, in the first half of the 20th century, ‘national kitchens’ or ‘British restaurants’ were an integral feature here, too. At their peak, there were thousands of these establishments—as commonplace then as Greggs is today. 

“Family and home life was quite different in those times,” says Dr Hanna Baumann, Principal Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP). 

“People were working long hours in the factories, and it was considered really important to maintain the health of the public. So the state subsidised these diners, and they had panels of nutritionists to ensure the food was healthy and well sourced.” 

After World War II, as men returned from the front and women were encouraged to leave the workplace, most meals were once again prepared at home. Combined with pressure from the hospitality industry, this ultimately led to the demise of state-subsidised public diners in the UK. 

However, there’s a growing movement championing public diners as a potential solution to some of today’s societal challenges, backed by UCL research, citizen science, and thriving community projects in Glasgow and Croydon. 

Harvesting insights from the collective memory of communities 

For the past five years, Hanna’s been investigating the connections between food and sustainability, health and social isolation. Her work with the IGP takes her all over the world, using artistic practices and participatory methods to get a better understanding of different food cultures and communities. 

Her work in Glasgow, collaborating with the food charity campaigning organisation Nourish Scotland and the UCL Citizen Science Academy, has opened up new areas of investigation about how migrant food knowledges can contribute to fairer, more sustainable food futures in the UK. 

Joseph Cook from the Citizen Science Academy explains how these ideas developed. 

“In the initial workshops, we invited local residents from the Polish community to share their thoughts and memories. 

“We held the workshops in the Sikorski club, a community venue trusted by the Polish community. We had a communal meal at the start, catered by the club, which made everyone feel welcome and broke down barriers. We had members of the public, who otherwise might never have got involved with academic projects, feeling like they were at home, and more comfortable with opening up. 

The project raised some interesting questions about the cultural role public diners play. Joseph says, “Often, it seems that public diners—certainly in Polish milk bars or Chinese community canteens, for example—are intended to promote or cement traditional local cuisine.

However, notions of traditional cuisine are complicated in cities like Glasgow and London, which have long been shaped by successive waves of migration. How could a public diner provide a shared dining experience that reflects the needs of such a diverse group of communities? 

The inclusive power of food

“We often talk about how UK food culture has been influenced by different waves of migration. Sometimes we talk about how minority groups are more likely to be food insecure and experience food poverty.

“But actually, migrating people bring with them a lot of knowledge about different ways of growing and preparing food, and also different ways of sharing food in communities, that can be really useful.

“These knowledges aren’t often seen, valued or recognised. They stay in small niches, like the Polish club, where all the people know what a milk bar is, but no one outside that community has heard about it before.

“Instead of seeing them as victims, we could be making so much more of the contributions that new arrivals can make to UK food culture, from growing non-native food crops that are adaptable to climate change conditions for sustainability, to innovative models of communal eating facilities that can bring food justice into our cities.”

This idea of harnessing the cultural knowledge of migrant communities is embedded in both Hanna’s current research project, funded by UCL Grand Challenges and working with Nourish Scotland to pilot public diners, and a co-designed community kitchen in Camden.

The kitchen, which opened in June 2025, was created in collaboration with long-term residents and asylum seekers living in temporary accommodation.

Hanna says, “We saw an opportunity to draw in these asylum seekers, to learn from their food culture and heritage, and make them feel welcome in that community centre.

“In their hotels, they don’t have any cooking facilities, so they don’t have the agency to cook or host a meal.

“So the idea was to create that space where people can cook for themselves and have encounters with different people. Food really helps, just to sit at the table together and eat the same meal.”

A recipe for economic renewal

Citizen science and co-design principles will guide the creation of the new public diners in the UK.

“There are two pilots, one in Dundee and one in Nottingham,” says Hanna.

“They’re still in the design phase—not only the physical space, but planning for what goes on the menu, how much they’ll charge, and how much they’ll be subsidised.”

When it comes to a wider UK rollout of these ideas, Hanna highlights the potential difference that local authorities could make.

“Most of the food in the UK is consumed in cities. And there’s some really interesting stuff happening at the local and city level right now—cities are actually the ones that are being progressive in their policy making and trying out new, exciting things.

“We’re seeing all kinds of great ideas, like meanwhile use of spaces under development for food growing, opening up school kitchens after hours for community members, and bans on junk food ads on public transport.

“So that’s where a lot of the levers are to make change happen on food justice issues.

“There’s a bigger conversation here, too—it’s about widening the imagination about what the state can provide to combat the severe levels of inequality we’re seeing. Food is one of those things where this inequality is very tangible.

“The NHS, the school systems, the prisons—the state procures huge amounts of food, which gives them a lot of power over production, too. They could extend and use that power to influence food production for everyone’s benefit.

“Here at the IGP, we’ve been doing a lot of work on Universal Basic Services—making all the baseline things that people need free of charge at the point of delivery. It’s ambitious, but we’ve been working with economists to model the possibilities—how much does it put into the economy? How much of our resources would it free up?”

Hanna points to the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani in New York as a valuable testbed for many of these ideas. The newly inaugurated mayor plans to provide free bus transport and universal childcare, along with a network of city-owned grocery stores.

“There are still a lot of conversations needed about how to implement plans like these, and we’re really interested in ways to include people in that envisioning process.”