Development and Expansion of Existing Food Price Modelling System

There is a need for Defra to better understand the impact of food price changes on consumers health and welfare, which has become more pressing in light of increasing pressures from modern society. The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UKs exist from the European Union (EU) and the war in the Ukraine has contributed to increase food price volatility in the UK, and November 2022 saw year-on-year food price inflation rise to the highest levels since the 1970s. There is a need for Defra to better understand the impact of food price changes on consumers health and welfare, which has become more pressing in light of increasing pressures from modern society. We are seeking an external consultant to deliver the development of a single model combining the current food price and elasticities frameworks and expand the research even further to gain an in-depth understanding of what drives food affordability, accounting for the heterogeneity across household types and groups. The model should allow Defra to test different types of scenarios (the 'what if' questions) and measure the impacts of food price inflation (the 'so what' questions) on different household groups. This research has 6 main objectives: 1. To make an incremental improvement to the accuracy and usefulness of the current food price modelling systems by using the most updated data sets provided by the Authority (unless tenderers are a market research, market data and marketing consulting agency, then you will need to provide your own data set at your own cost - see Data Requirements and Sharing in the Specification). 2. To identify the impacts of food price movements on household affordability, welfare, and dietary habits through the creation of an analytical model. 3. To analyse the effects of food price movements on consumer behaviour amongst economically and socially disadvantaged groups in England. 4. Upon provision of a list of options by Defra, to prioritise possible options for policy interventions targeted at food affordability and accessibility. 5. To produce a variant of the current food price modelling system to analyse the impact of food price drivers in a period of heightened food price volatility. 6. To improve functionality of the modelling system to produce results on sector-led basis, thus improving granularity of data