Canongate scoops Dr Stuart Gillespie's polemic on 'power imbalances' driving global food crises

Canongate has acquired Food Fight, nutrition and food policy expert Dr Stuart Gillespie’s polemic on the "power imbalances" driving global food crises.

Senior commissioning editor Helena Gonda acquired world rights from Victoria Hobbs at A M Heath. Canongate will publish the book in hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audiobook in April 2025, with a paperback to follow.

"Food is life but our food system is killing us," the synopsis says. "Designed in a different century for a different purpose — to mass produce cheap calories to prevent famine — it’s now generating obesity, ill-health and premature death. We need to transform it, into one that is capable of nourishing all eight billion of us and the planet we live on."

The synopsis adds: "In Food Fight, Stuart Gillespie reveals how the food system we once relied on for global nutrition has warped into the very thing making us sick. From its origins in colonial plunder, through the last few decades of neoliberalism, the system now lies in the tight grip of a handful of powerful transnationals whose playbook is geared to profit at any cost."

Gillespie commented: "We are in a pivotal decade when hard choices need to be made. We need a radical overhaul of a food system that’s become sclerotic after decades of corporate capture. This is not about repair or yet more tweaking at the margins. We need a different system propelled by different goals – to ensure food equity, nourish our children and to protect the planet they will live on. I am so happy to be working with Helena and the Canongate team on this."

Gonda added: "It’s exciting to be working with Stuart on this timely and vital book. We know about the dangers and lack of nutrition in addictive, ultra-processed food; finally, here is a book which also offers hope that we still have the power to turn things around. Stuart is the perfect person to take us behind the scenes to reveal the underpinnings that shape the global food system and I can’t wait to share his important message with readers."