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The Food Chain

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

World Service,501 episodes

Episodes

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Let food do the talking
Does food have the power to send messages when words aren’t enough?
22 May 2025,26 mins
Snackification: Our love affair with snacks
How did snacking start and why do we do it?
15 May 2025,26 mins
Stress, eat, repeat?
What happens to our eating habits when we’re stressed, and how to change that
08 May 2025,26 mins
A fresh start
The bakeries and eateries employing staff with criminal records or history of addiction
01 May 2025,26 mins
Food cottage industries
We hear from the women making food products at home as a source of income
24 Apr 2025,26 mins
What’s the future for Indigenous food?
First Nations people in Canada talk about opportunities and barriers to food security.
17 Apr 2025,26 mins
The packaging problem
Sustainable packaging is evolving, but will consumer habits catch up?
10 Apr 2025,26 mins
How to run a local shop
Why convenience stores are having to change to stay in business
03 Apr 2025,29 mins
The power of the review
How reviews are changing and what that means for restaurants
27 Mar 2025,26 mins
Why is saffron so expensive?
What it takes to harvest the world’s priciest spice
20 Mar 2025,26 mins
The art of food branding
The designers influencing what and where you eat
13 Mar 2025,26 mins
Why we love noodles
The history and evolution of this popular food
06 Mar 2025,26 mins
Bouillon: The story of stock
How the simplest dish influenced restaurants and cuisine today
27 Feb 2025,26 mins
Masters of the craft
What motivates someone to dedicate years of their life to learning one skill?
20 Feb 2025,26 mins
How to make a TV cooking show
Three TV cooking programme producers provide the secret ingredients to a hit cooking show
13 Feb 2025,26 mins
The world's oldest restaurants
How has the oldest restaurant in the world stayed open for 300 years?
06 Feb 2025,26 mins
Crunch!
Why we like crunchy foods, and what benefits they might have
30 Jan 2025,28 mins
Is anyone following dietary guidelines?
Exploring how realistic official healthy-eating advice is
23 Jan 2025,26 mins
Should we eat less rice?
This staple grain is impacted by and contributes to climate change
16 Jan 2025,29 mins
What's the point of cookbooks?
We ask why people are still willing to pay for recipes
09 Jan 2025,29 mins
Has Christmas food gone mad?
Inside the race for creating the most eye-catching festive flavours
19 Dec 2024,26 mins
Stadium food
The best – and worst – things to eat at sports grounds across the world
12 Dec 2024,26 mins
Croffle, anyone?
The rise of the dessert café and the extraordinary creations it’s spawned
05 Dec 2024,26 mins
How did fast food become so successful?
The story of how fast-food chains took over the world
28 Nov 2024,26 mins
We are 10!
We are celebrating 10 years of The Food Chain with some of our favourite moments
21 Nov 2024,28 mins
Just vanilla
Underappreciated and unfairly maligned. Is vanilla worth reconsidering?
14 Nov 2024,26 mins
How work changed lunch
The history and evolution of the workplace lunch
07 Nov 2024,29 mins
Living with water shortages
The cities living with drought and limited water supplies
24 Oct 2024,26 mins
Housemates
The highs and lows of cooking in a shared kitchen
17 Oct 2024,27 mins
How much water should I drink?
How your age, sex, and geographic location impact how much water you need
10 Oct 2024,26 mins