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Food systems analyst and journalist

I work with media, think tanks, philanthropy and investors to make sense of complex systems: food security, supply chains, political economy, labour, climate, technology and markets.

My work clarifies what is happening, why it matters and what to do next.

A farmer’s son, master’s in food policy and a decade of experience across research, business and journalism in Europe and Africa.

Works with the Financial Times, BBC, and the Associated Press, and leads editorial strategy for TABLE, a food systems think tank at the University of Oxford. Winner of the 2025 Sophie Coe Prize for food writing. 2025 Humboldt Fellow for the future of food.

Fluent in French and Spanish, and gets by in Wolof.

My Most Read Work

My Latest Work

The Sophie Coe Prize •

The Sophie Coe Prize

The winner of this year’s Sophie Coe Prize was announced at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery on Saturday 12th July. Jack Thompson was awarded the £1,500 Prize for his article ‘Separating Weetabix from the Chaff’, which highlights the difficulties faced by farmers who are increasingly obliged to deal with international corporations in a style described by the judges as “very well written, lively, informative and accessible.”
SEJ •

Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting, Large: SEJ 23rd Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment

Through comprehensive on-the-ground reporting in West Africa and painstaking gathering and assessment of shipping and other supply-chain data, The Financial Times showed how some half a million metric tons of fish from the waters off Mauritania were turned into fish meal used in Norwegian salmon farms. This FT investigation used data visualization, motion graphics and photography to great effect, literally connecting the dots between crisis-level food shortages in West Africa — driven by the near-collapse of the region's fish stocks that Norway's salmon farming operations had caused — and the salmon marketed on UK supermarket shelves."
Al Jazeera •

The beekeepers of Sine Saloum: How all-women team tends to Senegal mangrove

Experts say the management model can be adopted by communities across Senegal and elsewhere in the world.

Joal-Fadiouth, Senegal – Clutching a purse and clad from head to toe in white protective gear, Bintou Sonko removes a small metal kettle from her purse and releases smoke into one of the 50 beehives nestled in the dense mangrove outside her town in Senegal. Pacifying the bees, the 53-year-old extracts a dark golden liquid from within.
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Contact

 You can get in touch via email at: 

jackthompsonjournalist@gmail.com