Why I accepted a place on the Food Strategy Advisory Board

Our Executive Director Anna Taylor discusses her role on the government's new Food Strategy Advisory Board

Last week I attended the first meeting of DEFRA’s new Food Strategy Advisory Board. Many people on LinkedIn have expressed dismay about the composition of the Board, and the dominance of industry representatives, so I wanted to explain why I decided to accept the invitation:

1.    A government commitment to a food strategy aimed at delivering health, environmental and equity outcomes so early in a parliamentary term is a rare opportunity. There have been two other attempts in the past 20 years, but both suffered from poor timing. The last Labour Food Strategy was rapidly followed by the 2010 general election, and Henry Dimbleby’s independent National Food Strategy review landed in 2021 when UK politics was in turmoil and there was no political champion to lead food strategy development. The initiation of this food strategy has come at the right time.

2.    Minister Daniel Zeichner who is chairing the Board is well versed in the issues that we at The Food Foundation care about. He has spoken at the launches of our last two editions of the Broken Plate report – the first time when he was in opposition – and shared our concerns about the damaging food environments that we’re living in. I see serving on the Board as an opportunity to ensure he has all the strongest arguments and best policy ideas at his fingertips to lead the strategy process. Adding to this, Secretary of State Steve Reed is also convening Ministers from other departments (DHSC, DFE, DBT and MHCLG) to develop the strategy – this is the apex of the decision making. This cross-ministerial board is an encouraging sign of a commitment to cross-departmental working, and shows a shift away from siloed thinking on food which is something many of us working in this space have been advocating for over a number of years. In short, at this stage in the process, I have some faith that the DEFRA Ministers (and their team of civil servants) are serious. There is credible leadership and an experienced team in place to deliver a meaningful strategy.

3.     I see this as a unique opportunity to help establish the foundations for long term change in the food system so that it can deliver outcomes that support people’s health, planetary health and food security. Having worked for almost three years with Henry Dimbleby on the 2021 National Food Strategy (independent review) and with The Food Foundation team on our own manifesto for change, I am personally very determined to see action. Recommendation 14 of the previous strategy was to “Set clear targets and bring in legislation for long-term change”. My view is that this strategy should start by mandating disclosure by food businesses of data on a key metrics (including the healthiness of food sales) and move on to develop a legislative framework that provides the basis for future policy development. There are many other policies and actions that I would like to see emerge through this discussion, but these two measures would offer a quick win and a firm foundation for the rest of the strategy.

That said, I would have liked to see a much more balanced Board to advise on the strategy and have made my views on this known to the Chair. DEFRA Ministers have chosen to make this Board industry heavy. This obviously presents significant challenges.

While the Board is unpaid and purely advisory, it is far from ideal that more than half of its members have vested interests in the very companies whose practices need to change to deliver a healthier and more sustainable food system. Members of the Board will have direct access to the Minister leading the strategy and many other key food system sectors are not represented at all.

Nevertheless, over a third of us on the Board do not have interests in the food industry – including the Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Professor Susan Jebb, Ravi Gurumurthy (CEO of Nesta) and Emily Miles (DEFRA’s Director General).

Our job is to hold the Board to account and insist that health and environmental outcomes are locked into proposed actions, ensure that we learn the lessons of recent decades, and do not get drawn into proposals that rely on voluntary actions by a few businesses that will deliver no systemic change.

And I know from talking to the team at DEFRA that there are a wide range of other mechanisms being set which aim to draw into the process the wider expertise of civil society.

I’m also very pleased that we’re working closely with our Food Ambassadors, The Food Farming and Countryside Commission and DEFRA to ensure that citizens themselves can be integrally involved in the process.

I will carefully track the progress of the FSAB conversations looking for signs of meaningful action. If I see that industry voices are dragging the conversation in a direction that serves only their interests, then I will make my views known to the Board.

And if little or no progress is made on meaningful strategy commitments in the coming months, then I will reassess my role on the Board and have no hesitation in stepping away (as I have done in the past).

I am enormously grateful for the continued support from many people working in the sector and will be relying on you all to call out concerns as and when they arise.

I look forward to the opportunity to use my role to bring the voices of civil society organisations to the table in this process and I plan to bring into the conversation the huge wealth of experience and innovative ideas that I have acquired through working with so many amazing organisations during my time at The Food Foundation.

I will be working with DEFRA to ensure that there are multiple routes through which these organisations, as well as citizens themselves, can be directly involved in the process of strategy development.

The FSAB is not the funnel for these proposals, but just one part of the architecture of DEFRA’s engagement with stakeholders. It is an important beginning but much more will be needed, and many more people involved for it to deliver the right ending.