EVEN IF YOU LISTENED CLOSELY to every conversation between customer and trader in Le Touquet's thrice-weekly market in Rue de Metz, you'd never hear a mention of "future food strategy" or the "public engagement" in a "joined-up approach to food policy". Instead, in this tourism-driven town a half-hour's drive south of Calais in northern France, all you'd see in front of you would be wonderful food.

There is a vast range of fresh fish that you couldn't find in any British supermarket; a rainbow of fresh vegetables laid out like an Impressionist painting; cheeses from every corner of France; and meats, poultry and God-knows-what of delights that make you realise that when it comes to food, "Buy British" isn't consumer advice, it's a punishment.

Earlier this month the Cabinet Office published what it laughingly called the government's "21st century challenges for food in the UK". The findings followed 10 months of looking at food policy across government. It was a report of sorts, given that Gordon Brown was commissioning yet another report from his chief scientific adviser to look at the twin challenges of "climate change and global food security" and a "focus on fair prices, safer food, healthier diets and better environmental performances".

Before they publish, our "scientists" might like to hop across the Channel.

Le Touquet's market, and others from Biarritz to Barcelona, aren't special. Any British visitor will notice what isn't mentioned by the Cabinet Office: food in these markets is better. The choice is huge, the food fresher and of a higher quality, and - this is the bit that's difficult to digest - often a third of the price we pay in any supermarket here.

Nothing is wrapped in cellophane, no tiny handfuls of green beans encased ever-so-nicely in a painted cardboard box; broccoli doesn't come in chunks of four each encased in plastic. Fresh fish is laid out on ice; meat will have a butcher who'll cut what you want; herbs don't come in microscopic quantities as if packaged by Lilliputians.

Traders in these continental markets are often engaged in a co-operative, where the French equivalent of Defra and its "shared vision" on food strategy is off the menu, but high quality is very much on it.

The next time you feel the effects of food inflation, subsequently told this is a "global phenomenon" and not the fault of the government and that our food bills will now rise annually by £1000, you might ask why there isn't an equivalent pain in Le Touquet or indeed in many other markets throughout mainland Europe. If the Cabinet Office knows why, it simply isn't telling.