I applaud the Guardian for its investigative journalism that resulted in the report on the unacceptably poor standards of hygiene in a large poultry processing plant, which supplies many of this country’s large supermarkets. Your findings (UK’s top supplier of supermarket chicken fiddles food safety dates, 29 September) call into question the acceptability of the proposals that emerged from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in July in a document entitled Regulating Our Future. The FSA proposed reducing the frequency of public inspections of food safety standards for the major retailers, and concentrating on smaller firms that were presumed to be less able to ensure the safety of their products. The FSA proposed that the large supermarkets could outsource inspections to commercial contractors, who could audit and verify the safety of their systems. That proposal assumed that the supermarkets are already reliably delivering safe products and high standards, an assumption that was undermined by your report and by a recent report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism entitled “Blowing the whistle on the meat industry”.

Moreover, the FSA’s proposals could allow the supermarkets and their commercial contractors to keep unwelcome news out of the public domain, while the information gathered by local authority environmental health officers and public analysts would more likely be made public, as it would be subject to the provisions of freedom of information legislation. Much of the fault lies not with the FSA, or local authorities, but with the government, which has cut the FSA’s budget and funding for local authorities to the extent that they can no longer consistently enforce food safety regulations in this country. If we are to avoid a continuing stream of food safety scandals, we need properly resourced public agencies that are publically accountable.

Professor Emeritus Erik Millstone

Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton

• In his review of the 2014 horsemeat scandal, Professor Chris Elliott reported that local authority enforcement services had been cut to the bone, with any further cuts leaving local authorities unable to effectively protect consumers from fraudsters. Now he calls for environmental health officers to undertake a thorough investigation of 2 Sisters. But with numbers of inspectors dropping from 1,050 in 2009-10 to 736 in 2014–15 and cuts in environmental health budgets leading to a 70% decline in business visits since 2010, there just aren’t sufficient EHOs to keep the public safe any more. A fraction of the estimated wealth of 2 Sisters’ owners, £544m (which according to the Sunday Times Rich List is a £114m increase on 2016), could pay for a fully functioning UK environmental health service. Billionaire owners, exploited workers, ill-equipped inspection regimes, ripped-off consumers and public health threatened: this is Theresa May’s free market at work.

Mike Campbell

Bristol

• Why the surprise that there is seemingly malpractice in the poultry supply chain as reported? One key finding from our research for the Economic and Social Research Council’s “Understanding the challenges of the food supply system” was that the structure of, and operating cultures within, the food market are such that unethical practices are embedded in the daily food-processing, production and distribution systems and practices because of the economic demands that exist at every level. Small margins, just-in-time delivery clauses, unfair contractual practices and the need to squeeze profit at every level create conditions whereby some businesses can barely survive, making the food market highly dysfunctional, except for those corporate actors that are able to influence the structure of these markets.

What is apparent is that there is an interaction between market (dys)functionality and criminal opportunity in legitimate businesses, as unethical behaviours can be easily concealed behind the normal, common business practices carried out by otherwise legitimate market actors. If we look at the large number of food fraud incidents, these are in the main “inside jobs” and not the work of external criminal enterprises, such as organised crime groups, trying to make a fast buck. Questions need asking of the whole food system. What we need to do urgently is reform our food supply markets to ensure authenticity, sustainability and market resilience.

Jon Spencer Reader in criminology

Dr Nick Lord Senior lecturer in criminology

Dr Cecilia Flores Elizondo Research fellow

Centre of criminology and criminal Justice, School of Law, University of Manchester

• The current row about the supply of chickens to supermarkets highlights a recurring issue of food in our society. Who is to blame? Supermarkets, certainly, for believing that their customers will only buy food priced at the lowest possible level. But politicians and wider society need to relook at our relationship with food in general. Despite the fact that we now boast some of the best restaurants in the world, we seem more disconnected than ever from what we eat and I would argue that we really do not have a food culture in our country, except at the margins. People feel that it is normal to eat the cheapest food they can buy without understanding the health and environmental costs. They believe processed food to be both cheaper and quicker to cook when it is neither.

There should be a real attempt to reconnect us to the food we grow, sell and eat. Without it this crisis in the food chain will continue. The question is, do we have a government that cares enough to do something about it?

Tony Schendel

Salisbury, Wiltshire

• Yet another reason to go vegetarian, or at least buy meat only from local, known farmers.

Rachel Meredith

York

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters