Tuesday 20th October 2026 – From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet – how to build a better food system – Dr Stuart Gillespie

About the speaker:

Dr Stuart Gillespie is a writer and freelance consultant, non-resident senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and honorary associate at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.  Since the early 1980s, he has worked on food, nutrition and health policy, research and action in various ways, in various places. He has around 200 publications including 10 books, the latest of which is Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet which was selected as a BBC Food Programe Book of the Year (2025) and winner of Guild of Food Writers Investigative Writer (2026) award. His newsletter Food Fight Files can be found on stuartgillespie.substack.com

About the talk:

Drawing on his recent book Food Fight, Stuart will shine a light on the historical evolution of the global food system – from colonial times, through to the last half-century of progressive corporate capture. He will unpack the ways in which growing market and financial power of a handful of companies has been used to leverage political and epistemic power to lock in their dominance. Finally, he will draw on the growing body of evidence and experience from around the world to show how things can be turned around – and how a better food system, with people and planet at its heart, can be built.