Our reaction to government's response to food inquiry report

The Food Foundation is disappointed by the government's response to recommendations within the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee report.

The Department of Health and Social Care issued a statement on January 30 in response to the committee's 192-page Hungry for change: fixing the failures in food report published last October.

It was set up to investigate the influence of 'Ultra-Processed foods' and those high in fat, sugar and salt on health outcomes.

Anna Taylor, Executive Director of The Food Foundation, said: "The Government response to the recommendations of the House of Lords Committee on Food, Diet and Obesity lacks both the ambition and pace needed to reshape the food system to enable everyone to eat well, whatever their background.

"The Government sounds tone deaf to the fact that the current measures in place to improving diets are inadequate, and business as usual or keeping things under continual review is miles off what’s needed to tackle the challenges outlined so well in the House of Lords report, and echoed in The Food Foundation’s Broken Plate report.

"While the health mission is referred to repeatedly, it is so far unclear what is concretely being done to reduce demand on the NHS through genuine primary prevention of ill health through tackling harmful food environments.

"The Government response suggests that Ministers have not appreciated that the health mission, and indeed the economic mission, will never succeed unless we deal with drivers of poor diets.

"Polling has showed that just 13% of the public believe food companies will make their food healthier without Government intervention.

"And yet Ministers show no signs of appetite to regulate industry (despite acknowledging their critical role in shaping diets) or introduce much needed policy reforms.

"At a minimum, we would have liked to have seen a commitment to improving policies on commercial baby and toddler food, school food, and taxes.

"We would also like to have seen progress on mandating companies to report on the healthiness of their food sales through the Food Data Transparency Partnership (FDTP) - a genuine quick win which could provide the foundations for policy development and prioritisation. But this seems to have been kicked into the long grass.

"Our diets are now the single biggest cause of preventable ill health in the UK, placing unsustainable demand on the NHS and holding back productivity.

"Much bolder action is needed if the next generation of children is to have any chance of a healthy future.

"We hope that the Government’s upcoming food strategy will offer a substantially more ambitious approach to improving the health and sustainability of food in the UK, and look forward to working with the Government to making that happen."

Investors working within the food system have also expressed their disappointment.

Sophie Lawrence, Stewardship and Engagement Lead at Greenbank, who gave evidence to the committee, said: "I was disappointed not to see a more decisive commitment to mandatory reporting measures in the Government’s response, something the Investor Coalition on Food Policy has been pushing for since 2021.

"To date, reporting performance on a company’s health-related impacts has been voluntary, meaning that only some companies are reporting data.

"Where companies are reporting, they are often disclosing different metrics and using varying definitions of what constitutes a ‘healthy’ product.

"This hinders the ability of investors to compare performance across the sector, hold businesses to account and accurately understand what progress is being made as well as analyse the risks and opportunities facing companies.

"The Government’s Food Data Transparency Partnership presents a significant opportunity to address the current lack of health and environmental performance disclosure and for the UK to be seen as a leader globally.

"We stand ready to work with Government to continue to understand how reporting on healthier sales could work."

Antony Yousefian, a partner at The First Thirty, said: "It is disappointing to observe a lack of urgency and failure to see any broader recognition that health, food, and economic growth are interlinked.

"The ongoing spiralling costs of food-related health services act as an effective handbrake on economic growth."