British Food Rationing in World War II

The start of World War II in September 1939 ushered in a total war, drawing together home and military fronts in ways unknown before in human history. The all-encompassing nature of the war disrupted supply lines, creating food insecurity and instability, and in some cases, hunger and starvation. However, this war was not the first global conflict that the world had seen, nor the only one that occurred beyond living memory. Just twenty years prior, the world had been engulfed in another conflict, World War I, and in many ways, WWI was a rehearsal for WWII. 

Many government officials learned lessons from the first war, which they carried with them to help them to more successfully pursue a second conflict. This was particularly true for many Allied countries when it came to the issue of food and sustaining home front consumption levels in the face of adversity. In Britain, an island that was not agriculturally self-sufficient and needed to import over 70% of its food supply, maintaining food stores and feeding its population in wartime was of paramount importance. This was a hard lesson that British officials had learned during World War I. Due to German submarine action, military losses, and poor government planning, the supply of food in Britain in 1917 was such that the officials called for voluntary rationing of goods. However, few people heeded the government’s call to conserve resources. Instead, consumers’ concerns over dwindling foodstuffs led to hoarding and buying goods on the black market. The situation was such that by 1918, the British government was forced to institute a mandatory system of food rationing for everyone living on the island. But the system was ill conceived and poorly constructed, making the country ill-equipped to deal with supply issues. 

Communal kitchen in World War I

Taking what they had learned from the first war, lawmakers began planning early for a second war. They began planning for war, including organizing a well-structured and more effective food rationing program, in 1938. Officials hoped that by devising a system which was much more far reaching that the one devised in a makeshift way at the end of World War I, they could avert the issues of hoarding and the black market, while provide a stable means of sustaining the home front population for the duration of the conflict. 

British rationing was set to begin in the autumn of 1939. However, negative portrayals of the system in the press caused the British government to delay the introduction of food controls. Rationing began on January 8th, 1940. The first foods to be controlled were bacon, butter, and sugar. Other goods soon followed, including meat, tea, eggs, milk and cheese. The ration system was set up to feed everyone according to their prescribed dietary requirements, irrespective of their pre-war eating habits. The system did not differentiate between people based on income, class, or location. Rather an average rate of food for every man, woman and child was allocated to them through their government issued ration books. Three different types of ration books comprised the system. Adults were issued with nude-colored books. Green ration books were given to pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under 5. Blue books were issued to children, ages 5-16. Despite the government’s focus on “fair shares for all”, there were a few exceptions to these basic levels, as well as ways to obtain extras.

Workers in heavy industries such as steel production and coal mining petitioned the government for larger amounts of meat, which they felt were needed for the large physical demands placed on them in their employment sector. The government granted them extra provisions of meat, which were allocated through the workers’ company canteens, rather than as extra individual rations. Workers needed to buy a meal in their canteen in order to take advantage of this concession. However, not all industries had dining facilities available to them. If such canteens were unavailable to workers, they had to rely on their own rations for their meals by either bringing their lunch to work or going home during the lunch break and eating a meal there. Therefore, although the government made an allowance for the workers, not all workers could take advantage of it.

Vegetarians were allowed to forgo their meat ration, and instead received an extra amount of cheese to make up for the lack of protein in their diet. Children were also given extra allowances of meat, milk, orange juice and cod liver oil to suit their developmental needs. However, not all children received the extra foods assigned to them. In many instances, families combined their individual ration amounts to stretch resources. Children’s allowances were often pooled into the total family food amounts to feed those in the home. On the radio and in newspapers, the government made a concerted effort to urge parents, particularly housewives, not to divert food from growing children to working fathers. But it is unclear what effect, if any, this message had on wartime families. 

Everyone was given the same basic ration, which enabled everyone to obtain enough calories to live. However, such food was often bland, unappealing and uninspiring. Many in Britain had to shift from a diet based primarily on meat and two veg, to no meat and three veg due to limited meat rations, reductions in supply, and unrationed vegetables. However not everyone had the same diet or suffered from uninteresting, wartime food. Depending on an individual’s income level, location and level of risk aversion, one could have more food beyond that allowed one on the basic ration. Those who lived in the country, or those who owned land in the country were at a greater advantage than those individuals who lived in urban areas. In the country, people could grow their own gardens, and glean wild produce, such as mushrooms, apples, rosehips, and watercress to supplement their food. Individuals with land could also club together with their neighbors to form a pig club, where they raised an animal and then shared in the meat produced after slaughter. Those with land could also raise chickens. The government offered people the option of forgoing their egg ration (one fresh egg a week, or a packet of dried egg for a month per family) to obtain chicken feed and raise their own poultry, which would yield more eggs, and meat than was available to them on the ration. However, through its Dig for Victory campaign, the government urged people living in urban and suburban settings to take up work in an individual or community garden allotments to grow fruits and vegetables in order to add to their domestic food levels. Many people heeded the government’s call to arms. By 1942, there were nearly 1.5 million allotments covering over 140,000 acres under cultivation, much of them lay in the countryside. 

Allotment in Kensington Garden in World War II

If a person had money and knew where to look, they could buy goods on the black market at inflated prices. Such illegal activities were not massive in scale or organized around at a specific location and point of sale. Rather, many black-market dealings were carried out by individual sellers, who had extra food or coupons to sell to someone they knew, or someone who knew someone. Although frowned upon, people also engaged in bartering. They traded goods and sometimes coupons for goods that they didn’t need in exchange for ones that they did need from their neighbors, friends or extended family.

In order to purchase meat and other supplies, individuals had to register with their local butcher and grocer. They could then only shop at these stores. In this way, the government could keep track of supplies and sales, shipping a certain amount of food to a store based on the number of customers registered there and their food ration allocation. Sales associates in these shops were supposed to collect the appropriate ration coupons and the money for a purchase, thereby conforming to the ration system. However, some customers, who were favored over other customers might be given little extras of meat, cheese or other goods “under the counter”, if a butcher or grocer had remaining or extra goods. These activities were strictly illegal, but many shop owners and customers participated in such dealings during the war as there was little chance of getting caught or being prosecuted for it. 

As a way to ease the burden of housewives, who had to provide three meals a day on limited rations, the government set up British Restaurants in 1942. These establishments were community or organization-run restaurants to which the government provided startup funds and support. Something akin to community kitchens, they provided a square meal of meat and two veg at an affordable rate for workers on their lunch break, and families out for dinner. The restaurants did not require people to forfeit their ration coupons, enabling people to stretch their food resources. Likewise, cafes, restaurants and cafeterias offered people meals that were off the ration, providing another means to eke out food amounts in the home. 

Continue reading about British rationing in the blog, “Personal Points, Lend-Lease, and SPAM”

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