Will Andy Burnham’s stockpile missive start a tinned food revolution?

If you are old enough to remember 70s London you will have heard of Big Biba, the fashion retailer that expanded into a huge, seven-storey department store on Kensington High Street in 1974. The opening of Big Biba mesmerised Londoners: the shopping experience was unlike anything else. The walls were adorned with groovy patterns while decadent displays and massive art-deco statues intersected the aisles. There was an enormous neon-lit restaurant, the “rainbow room”, which quickly became stuffed with A-list celebs, and above that stood the capital’s biggest roof garden, policed by a troop of pink flamingos, who strutted around its perimeter.

It was part-department store, part-Disneyland. I, alas, am too young to remember Biba, but I’m enthralled by all the photos I have found of it online . Among my favourites is one taken in the food hall, which, remarkably, made canned food look glamorous. The hall housed huge shelving units, each six foot high, designed to resemble what they were selling: a giant can of Heinz beans, an enormous tin of sardines. Punters flocked to Kensington in their millions.

But despite its enormous initial fame, Big Biba would go on to last barely more than a year before shutting its doors (the building now houses an M&S, H&M, a luxury gym and the newsroom of the Daily Mail). And as Biba fell out of fashion, so too has Britain’s love for tinned food. As a rough estimate to how well-stocked our pantries are with non-perishables, I had a peruse through the government’s family food statistics dating back to the 1970s.

Taking together the eight categories I looked at – canned beans, fruit, peas, beef, potatoes, tomatoes and beans – there is a clear trend: our consumption of canned stuff has declined sharply in favour of fresh alternatives. The total amount purchased per person per week across these eight categories peaked at just over 450 grams in 1976, and has almost halved over the past half-century. The decline is particularly acute for canned peas (down 90 per cent) and tinned fruit (down 85 per cent), while sales of soup (down 47 per cent) and beans (down 18 per cent) have fallen more modestly.

But two areas buck the trend: canned tomatoes, sales of which have more than doubled, and tinned fish, which has grown just as fast. That is in part, I think, because innovative retailers have found a way to add a Biba-like touch of glamour to these foodstuffs. While a can of potatoes is about as chic as a Noel Edmonds autobiography, followers of foodie fashion are willing to pay eye-watering amounts for tinned fish. A high-end can of anchovies retails for as much as £50, and white tuna £60.

The website The Tinned Fish Market offers gift subscriptions for £325. Last week Andy Burnham told Brits we need to stock up on at least three days’ worth of tinned food, to prepare us for a crisis. Might this trigger a resurgence in premium tinned products across the board, a la anchovies? Can it create a new market for those who want to live out the last days of the apocalypse with a culinary climax? I think our supermarkets are leaving money on the table.