Investors urge swift implementation of mandatory healthy sales targets

A group of 23 investors managing $1.33 trillion in assets are calling for rapid and robust implementation of the government’s plan to make disclosures and target setting around healthy food sales mandatory in its 10-Year NHS Health Plan.

The group, which includes members of ShareAction’s Long-term Investors in People’s Health coalition and The Food Foundation's Investor Coalition for Food Policy, are seeking robust metrics for companies' obligatory reporting and targets based on public health expertise.

Investors are also calling for the policy to cover all large food companies including food manufacturers, retailers, and the out-of-home sector, to ensure it meaningfully tackles the wider public health challenges facing the UK and to ensure it is adequately enforced.

The key points include:

• Major investors are backing the UK Government’s plan to mandate large food companies to report and set targets on the healthiness of their sales;
• Investors are urging the Government to adopt clear, science-based metrics and cover all large food businesses within the scope of the policy;
• The statement calls for robust implementation of mandatory measures as essential to protecting public health, economic productivity, and long-term investment returns.

Baroness Walmsley, Chair of the 2024 House of Lords Select Committee on Food, Diet and Obesity, and recently-appointed Honorary Ambassador to the Investor Coalition on Food Policy, said: "During our work on the Select Committee, we repeatedly heard about the mounting economic costs of diet-related disease, and how these are creating financial material risks for companies and the investors in these companies.

"The misplaced focus on voluntary mechanisms and individual responsibility that have been at the heart of successive governments' policies to tackle obesity have failed to address diet-related ill-health.

"It is clear that mandatory regulation of our complex food industry is now needed so that we can move to a healthy, sustainable and affordable food system that supports our economy. There is already broad support for mandatory reporting amongst the business and investor communities.

"Therefore, I very much welcome the government's commitment to mandate standardised reporting on healthy food sales, which was one of the principal recommendations we highlighted in our Report: Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system."

• Read the letter in full here