Lack of industry regulation and accountability pushing people towards unhealthy eating

Lack of industry regulation and accountability has created a food system pushing people towards unhealthy eating - new report shows 

The Food Foundation’s annual State of the Nation’s Food Industry report, published today, has found that: 

• Just 5 companies (Haribo, Mars, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Kellog’s) are responsible for over 80% of TV ads for snacks and confectionary aired before the watershed, despite all of them claiming not to advertise to children ⁽¹⁾
• Almost a third (30%) of major UK restaurant chains serve main meals where over half of the options are concerningly high in salt⁽²⁾ 
• Almost 1 in 5 supermarket multibuy offers are on meat and dairy products, with half of these offers on processed meat (10.6% of all offers) despite the known health risks of consuming too much processed meat⁽³⁾ 
• Only 1 in 4 major UK food businesses has a healthy sales target and discloses data on the healthiness of their sales  
• Restaurant chains and fast-food outlets are the least transparent sector by some way, having made no progress since last year in disclosing healthy sales data or setting targets to improve the healthiness of menus 
• Global food giants Mondelez, Mars and Coca-Cola still have no clear explicit board-level accountability for nutrition⁽⁴⁾ 
• Food industry representatives and their trade associations met with Defra ministers a total of 1,377 times between 2020 and 2023. This is over 40 times more meetings than those held between food NGOs and Defra ministers⁽⁵⁾ 

This report is published annually by The Food Foundation who have analysed data from across an array of sources to build up a revealing picture of the UK’s food system.

The findings show that currently the food environment, from the food being advertised to us, to the food that dominates menus when we eat out, to the price promotions being offered to us in supermarkets, is relentlessly pushing consumers to make unhealthy choices.

The report also shows there is a clear lack of accountability, with food industry giants failing to set targets or report on their company’s health credentials and global food giants Mondelez, Mars and Coca-Cola having no clear explicit board-level accountability for nutrition.

The new Government has committed to raise the healthiest generation of children ever, to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy and to strengthen the economy.

There is increasing public awareness that this cannot be done without addressing diets and the availability and affordability of healthy food.

Currently obesity and overweight are estimated to contribute to around 40,000 deaths every year and cost the UK economy an estimated £98 billion annually.

Last month a report from the House of Lords Committee on Food, Diet and Obesity forcefully called for the government to fix our broken food system and turn the tide on the public health emergency.

The Food Foundation’s annual report includes data from its Plating Up Progress benchmark which monitors 36 major UK food businesses, covering retailers, the Out of Home sector, wholesalers and manufacturers.

The benchmarks looks at which of these businesses are disclosing transparent data on sales, marketing and sourcing and setting targets to support the sales of more healthy and sustainable food.

The Food Foundation found that while the majority of major food businesses have now set targets for and are reporting on reducing Scope 3 emissions, only one in four major UK food businesses has a healthy sales target and discloses data on the healthiness of their sales.

This is likely being driven by the increasing number of corporate reporting directives requiring businesses to publicly disclose data on their environmental impact in comparison to the lack of regulation and absence of reporting directives on the healthiness of portfolios.

  

While there has been more progress on climate than health, there is still an intention-action gap on environment targets, with over half of businesses assessed either not reporting on progress or seeing emissions rise.

The Food Foundation is calling on the government to introduce mandatory reporting by all large food businesses on both the healthiness and sustainability of their sales.

This is crucial for identifying what food is being sold (and ultimately consumed) and pointing to areas for improvement. Setting targets is equally important, serving as a North Star for driving meaningful change within companies.

A great deal of progress had been made in aligning on the health metrics for food businesses to report on via the Food Data Transparency Partnership (FDTP) during the last term of government, but this has come to a complete standstill since the election.

Labour ought to use the existing mechanisms for health reporting and move swiftly to place it on a mandatory footing.

Rebecca Tobi, Senior Business and Investor Engagement Manager at The Food Foundation, said: "This year’s State of the Nation’s Food Industry report demonstrates the huge impact food businesses have in shaping the food we eat – and how the current system is setting us up to fail.

"It’s not right that the most affordable, appealing and convenient options are often the unhealthiest ones.

"We urgently need the government to introduce regulation to raise standards and create a level playing field that enables progressive businesses to go further, faster.

"If we are to have any chance of ensuring the next generation are the healthiest ever - as Labour have pledged - then we simply can’t continue to ignore the major role large food companies are playing in shaping UK diets.

"We need regulation to ensure proper safeguards are in place to make sure businesses act responsibly, supporting people and planet as well as profit."

 

Baroness Walmsley, Chair of the House of Lords Food Diet and Obesity Committee, said: "When people are swimming against a tide of availability and advertising of unhealthy food, it is not helpful to tell them to swim harder.

"This report shows just how far the industry needs to move to support everyone to eat well, and the calls to action repeat many of those in the Lords committee’s report (Recipe for Health; a Plan to fix our broken food system).

"The government should act now to develop a long term strategy to fix our food system, underpinned by a new legislative framework.

"Without it, businesses have insufficient incentive to act in the public interest and will continue to cause harm with their relentless promotion of junk food."

 

James Toop, Chief Executive of Bite Back, said: "All through 2024, we’ve been running the Fuel Us, Don’t Fool Us campaign, and what we keep hearing from the young activists who drive Bite Back is how Big Food is putting profit over their health.

"Companies are secretive or even misleading about what’s in the junk food they’re marketing, while young people are hit with 15 billion ads online every year.

"Our research this year shows that the majority of Big Food’s UK sales come from unhealthy products, which has real consequences — one in three Year 6 children are at future risk of food related illness.

"If the new government wants to be on the right side of history and truly create the 'healthiest generation of children ever', they need to tackle this issue head-on and act on the recommendations in the State of the Nation's Food Industry report."

FOOTNOTES

⁽¹⁾ This metric looks at the number of confectionery and snack TV adverts broadcast over the period July-August 2022. The data was kindly provided by University of Liverpool, who obtained it from Overnights TV, a Broadcaster Audience Research Board (Barb). The dataset included information on advert length, channel, date and time of broadcast as well as the brand and their holding company for 76 channels with any child viewers aged 5-16 years. ‘Television rating’ (TVRs) and ‘impact’ were also provided (see Annex D). For our analysis we focussed on the adverts aired between 5:30am to 9pm (before the 9pm watershed). This aligns with the timing in the UK’s upcoming regulation for advertising HFSS food and drinks on TV (planned for Oct 2025).

⁽²⁾ In last years’ report we assessed the nutritional quality of menus from the UK's major café's, high street restaurant chains, pubs/bars and QSR using data provided by The University of Cambridge (Huang et al., 2022). This year we repeated the analysis with data from 2023 to see if there had been any changes in the ranking of restaurants. This year 47 companies were assessed. 

⁽³⁾ We worked with Questionmark Foundation, an international non-profit think tank, to look at what type of foods are included as part of multibuy and price promotion deals. Data was collected 4th-6th March 2024 for offers available across six major UK retailers; Aldi, Asda, Iceland, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Multibuy deals in scope were volume promotions, for example buy one, get one free (BOGOF) deals where customers benefit if more than one item (of the same) product is bought. Price promotions in scope were offers that discounted price compared to an original price, or discounted prices as part of customer loyalty schemes (e.g. Clubcard price).

⁽⁴⁾ For this metric we drew on the research conducted by ATNi (Access to Nutrition Initiative) for their latest Global Index, which assesses the world’s largest global food and beverage manufacturers, looking at how they contribute to addressing malnutrition in all its forms.

⁽⁵⁾ We conducted rapid research and analysis of ministerial meetings with the UK food industry and their major trade associations as documented on the ‘Transparency and freedom of information releases’ register on the UK Government website. All lobbying activity across these departments was analysed by assessing ‘gifts, hospitality, travel and meetings’ documented between 2020 and 2023 for six government departments: the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); HM Treasury (HMT); the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs  (Defra); the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)4; the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO); and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). We pre-identified companies assessed in our Plating Up Progress benchmarking analysis and the largest food and beverage trade associations in the UK, including those for the meat and dairy industry, to search for in the registers. Additional relevant companies and trade associations identified as part of searching the registers were also included in the final analysis.  A more in-depth briefing with the findings of this piece of research will be published in 2025.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Please contact Juliet Grant on 07899 973122 or email juliet.grant@foodfoundation.org.uk

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW
Rebecca Tobi, Senior Business and Investor Engagement Manager, The Food Foundation 

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ABOUT THE FOOD FOUNDATION
The Food Foundation is a charity working to influence food policy and business practice, shaping a sustainable food system which makes healthy diets affordable and accessible for all. We work in partnership with researchers, campaigners, community bodies, industry, investors, government and citizens to galvanise the UK’s diverse agents of change, using surprising and inventive ideas to drive fundamental shifts in our food system. These efforts are based on the continual re-evaluation of opportunities for action, building and synthesising strong evidence, convening powerful coalitions, harnessing citizens’ voices and delivering impactful communications.        
Registered Charity Number 1187611.

ABOUT PLATING UP PROGRESS
The Food Foundation’s Plating Up Progress benchmark provides an indication of how healthy and sustainable a company's portfolio is, looking at whether companies disclose and have targets for: 

1. % of sales of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods 
2. % of sales of fruit and vegetables 
3. % of sales of types of protein (animal and plant) 

Plating Up Progress assesses 36 major UK operating food businesses covering, retailers, the OOH sector, wholesalers and (for the first time this year) manufacturers. This group of companies is responsible for the majority of the food we buy, with over 90% of retail sales funnelled through the supermarkets assessed in our benchmark. Company disclosure and target setting is assessed across a range of health, environment and social metrics. Businesses are assigned scores for each metric based on whether they have a sales-based target and disclose data against the target.