British rationing put to the test in 1941

British food rationing began on 8 January 1940: bacon, butter, and sugar, then meat, tea, margarine, and fats. Lord Woolton — the businessman Frederick Marquis — did not create this system: appointed Minister of Food by Chamberlain in April 1940, he inherited a mechanism already in place that he had to extend and make acceptable.

1941 marked a turning point: the Atlantic submarine war was strangling imports. On 5 May 1941, cheese came under the coupon regime. In December, Woolton introduced the "points" system: each consumer was given a number of monthly points to spend freely on goods outside the basic ration (tinned food, biscuits, canned fruit), with the ministry adjusting the points value according to stocks. The challenge was also political and nutritional: to convince an entire people to accept scarcity over the long term, through posters, radio recipes, the "Woolton Pie," and the "National Loaf."

The overall line remained to be set. Should a strict arithmetical equality be applied to all? Hand out exemptions and special favours that would appease the discontented but wreck fairness? Or build a rationing system presented as "fair," coupled with targeted supplements for the most vulnerable — children, pregnant women, the sick — even at the cost of differentiating rations according to need?