While it was generally accepted that the war ‘might well be lost on the food front’ and despite the publication of the Luke Report in 1937, the government had no national food policy when war was declared in 1939, due largely to the political opposition to supplementary feeding programmes. The most important consideration for the people was the government's immediate assumption of responsibility for the supply and distribution of food. The politicization of the question of malnutrition in the 1930s meant there were many ready to advise the government of its responsibilities. Penguin Books published a Penguin Special in March 1939 by F. Le Gros Clark and R. M. Titmuss, Our Food Problem, and George Walworth put forward the case in favour of co-operative societies in Feeding the Nation in Peace and War. By 1940, these radical voices were joined by John Boyd Orr in Feeding the People in War-Time. In the event, nutritional knowledge played remarkably little part in the planning of the food rationing scheme that was eventually adopted.

Food control

Fear of immediate air attack accelerated government action. Over the weekend of 2–3 September 1939, Smithfield and Billingsgate markets were moved out of central London and concern was expressed about holding stocks of food at ports. In October 1939, the War Cabinet's Home Policy Committee formed a Sub-Committee on Rationing. The discussion centred around meat and sugar, during which it became clear that shipping strategies and Britain's obligations to feed the armed forces and support France were dominant. Civilian food consumption in Britain was, in effect, residual. Rationing was then discussed in the War Cabinet's Ministerial Sub-Committee on Food Control, which met from November 1939 onwards. Its initial concern was with the supply of sugar. At the second meeting in December, the Committee noted that there had been considerable hoarding and sugar consumption was already approximately 20 per cent above the peacetime level. Sugar was regarded as a basic food during the war and an essential source of energy. In consequence, Walter Elliot, then Minister of Health, argued for as large a sugar ration as possible and proposed a ration of 1lb. per head per week before finally accepting 12oz. for domestic and 8oz. for manufacturing purposes. Even so, Elliot returned to the same point later, claiming that since ‘fuel foods were interchangeable’, a smaller sugar ration meant more wheat would be required for human consumption.