Leeds will host the Government Chemist Conference on 23 and 24 June 2026, bringing an unusually practical climate and food agenda to the Nexus building at the University of Leeds. The meeting will run as an in-person event, with remote attendance also available for those who cannot travel. The official notice sets out the pressure points plainly: food systems are facing strain from climate change, population growth and the need to protect long-term food security. That makes this more than a diary entry. It is a clear readout of where UK food science and regulation are focusing next, from safer testing and fairer standards to environmental risks that can no longer be treated as separate from the food chain.

Hosted by Government Chemist Julian Braybrook, the conference is intended to bring together professionals from science, industry and policy around one practical question: how should food rules keep pace with a changing food system? Measurement science is the organising theme, but in everyday terms that means the methods used to decide what is safe, authentic, accurately labelled and ready for market. Keynote speakers include Professor Ian Young, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency, and Dr Justine Betja, Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Their involvement places the event firmly where evidence, regulation and public trust meet, with innovation discussed alongside the checks needed to keep it credible.

The first morning focuses on responsible regulation for food. Sessions range from Ian Young's keynote on future food and its importance to society and the economy to Paul Hancock's review of Government Chemist referee cases from 2023 to 2026, alongside Anthony Baldock on the port health regulatory environment and technology and a session on testing approaches and regulatory challenges in modern food systems. These may sound like specialist subjects, yet they sit close to daily life. Port checks, referee work and robust testing shape how imports are assessed, how disputes are settled and how quickly regulators can respond when products, ingredients or production methods start to change. In a period of climate disruption and tighter supply chains, those quieter parts of the system matter more, not less.

The first afternoon moves to measurement for evolving food systems, and here the programme gets even closer to the stresses already being felt by producers and consumers. Dr Justine Betja will speak on innovative food production in a regulatory environment, followed by sessions on honey authenticity data, shared industry intelligence for food integrity, regulation of innovative food products and advances in STEC diagnostics to support risk management. That mix is telling. Measurement science can sound distant, but it is central to whether food fraud is spotted early, whether contamination risks are understood and whether emerging products can reach the market with dependable safety checks behind them. For a lower-impact food economy to win public confidence, the evidence base has to be as strong as the ambition.

Day two shifts from oversight to design. Chaired by Linda Bedenik of the BioIndustry Association's Engineering Biology Advisory Committee, the morning session on engineering our future food will look at microbial food systems, cellular agriculture manufacturing, methods for cell cultivated products, all-island agri-food research and new approaches to alternative protein safety assessment using in vitro digestion and machine learning. There is a measured optimism in this part of the programme. Speakers including Karen Polizzi, Gary Lye, Malcolm Burns, Gary Williamson and Taskeen Niaz are set to examine how new food technologies can move from promise to proof. A networking deep-dive on engineering biology for food, hosted by the EngBioMet network, adds a practical forum for researchers and businesses trying to turn lab progress into reliable production.

The final session brings the environmental thread into sharper focus. Dorota Bartczak will present work on detecting and characterising microplastics, from quality-control materials through to food, while Christopher McElroy will discuss allergen detection in non-dairy milks. Later talks from Simon Jeffrey and WRAP's Matthew Barker will explore soil health for food production and carbon footprint methodology for sustainable packaging. Taken together, those sessions show how environmental protection now sits inside mainstream food science rather than beside it. Soil condition shapes resilience and yields. Packaging choices affect emissions. Microplastics and allergens demand better detection if claims around safety and sustainability are to carry weight in practice. This is the part of the programme where the environmental stakes are clearest.

Practical details are straightforward. The conference runs at Nexus, Discovery Way, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 3AA. Prices, excluding VAT, are set at £300 for the full in-person event, including the conference dinner, £175 for a one-day in-person pass and £100 per day for online attendance. Dinner places are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. The programme and speaker information will be updated regularly on the event page, and registration is open via the Eventbrite listing linked from the government notice. There is no single headline policy announcement attached to this event, but the agenda sends a useful signal all the same: the future of food will depend not just on new products, but on better evidence, cleaner production and rules that can keep pace with a warmer, more resource-stressed world.