The Food Programme

Leyla Kazim visits York, the UK's 'chocolate city', on the centenary of Joseph Rowntree’s death, to find out how the Quaker entrepreneur pioneered both social reform and iconic chocolate brands like Smarties and Kit Kat. Today, many independent chocolate makers still call York home, as do some of the word's biggest multinational confectionary makers. Leyla Kazim wanders through York Chocolate Festival to trace the city’s unique chocolate heritage and find out what changed when global companies got involved. As the so-called 'Dubai chocolate' drives a frenzy of demand for filled bars and imitations, Leyla meets a Newcastle chocolate maker with a penchant for wacky flavours and who inspired the original sell-out hit. Leyla also hears how falling global production and high prices of cocoa could be the end of chocolate as we know it. Produced by Nina Pullman for BBC Audio in Bristol.

Baroness Floella Benjamin once said “childhood lasts a lifetime” and our experiences of school dinners can shape how we eat for the rest of our lives. In this edition of The Food Programme Sheila Dillon investigates the importance of those early food memories with the help of Dr Heather Ellis from the School Meals Project. The Project says its aim is to produce the first ever comprehensive history of school meals across the different nations of the United Kingdom The programme makes a trip to the Food Museum in Suffolk to see a landmark exhibition around school food and Sheila pays a visit to a forward-thinking school in West London which bakes its own bread with flour made from the wheat that it grows just outside the school kitchen! Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol for BBC Audio by Robin Markwell Featuring an archive clip from BBC Breakfast in April 2025 with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson MP Also a brief extract from the book The Farmer's Wife: My Life In Days by Helen Rebanks

With the Government pledging to overhaul the way food is sourced for public institutions like hospitals, schools, prisons, and army bases, Sheila Dillon explores how these changes could be implemented and why they are deemed essential by many. Sheila visits St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, where chef Raouf Mansour has transformed the canteen for staff and visitors. After bringing the operation in-house post-Covid, the hospital began collaborating with local suppliers to provide fresh, seasonal produce. Raouf emphasises that retraining chefs to prepare nutritious, mezze-style meals has been crucial in encouraging staff to dine at the restaurant. The hospital is also working on plans to revamp patient meals, which are all prepared off-site, by working with smaller local caterers who can better meet some of the specific needs of patients there. Following her visit, Sheila returns to the studio to discuss whether the changes in Chertsey could signal a broader trend. She is joined by: Kevin Morgan, Professor of Governance and Development at Cardiff University and author of "Serving the Public: The Good Food Revolution in Schools, Hospitals, and Prisons" Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain Katie Palmer from Food Sense Wales, who is working on the Welsh Veg in Schools Project Derek Wright from Blackpool Catering Services, which has expanded its school meal provision over the past five years, with on-site chefs and locally sourced produce. Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol for BBC Audio by Natalie Donovan

The restaurant trade is fickle and can be a "here today, gone tomorrow" business. But a very small number of restaurants seem to have been with us for ever. Dan Saladino explores the secrets of the world's oldest restaurants.

Sheila Dillon hears the first exclusive readings from a Tudor ‘pamphlet of cheese’ that details the cheesemaking traditions of the 16th century, and reveals how cheese was seen as a nutrient-rich health food - from digestion aid to wound cleaner. Fast-forward to today, and Sheila visits Yorkshire cheesemongers Andy and Kathy Swinscoe to help recreate one of these historic recipes by hand in their dairy, as they discuss the significance of cheese history and how milk and cheese have a ’terroir’ just like wine. While the Tudors believed cheese was inherently good for you, modern-day science is still exploring the evidence. Now, cheese scientists are producing ground-breaking research investigating links between cheese and the health of our hearts and gut microbiome. But making cheese today is a tough job, from complying with food safety rules to the challenges of setting up and maintaining a small business. Sheila speaks to renowned cheesemaker Martin Gott to hear the strange tale of how gave up his career in the UK to set up the first ever organic creamery in Oman. Are we losing our cheesemakers just at the point when we’re rediscovering more about its potential health benefits? Sheila’s journey to find out how our cheese heritage faltered takes her to the Middle East, Japan and finally back to Yorkshire, where a new raw milk cheesemaker sparks hope for the future. Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Nina Pullman for BBC Audio in Bristol.