100+ leaders from across sectors urge Prime Minister to back Good Food Bill
Leaders from across business, investment, civil society, academia and the health sector have written to Andy Burnham to call for a Good Food Bill.
Signatories include major retailers Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Co-op, Booths and Waitrose (making up more than 64% of the grocery market share) as well as manufacturers Danone, Greencore and Samworth Brothers and foodservice wholesaler Bidfood, alongside charities including Barnardo’s, Amnesty International UK and WWF-UK, investment companies including Rathbones and The First Thirty Ventures, farming organisations including Soil Association and Nature Friendly Farming Network and health organisations including Action on Salt and Sugar and the World Cancer Research Fund International.
Led by The Food Foundation, Green Alliance and Sustain, the Good Food Bill campaign calls for a legally binding framework that would improve national food and nutrition security, public health and food system resilience.
The Good Food Bill should:
- Set legally binding targets to reduce childhood obesity, increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables and the proportion grown in Britain, and reduce household food insecurity;
- Require the Government to publish a Reference Diet, so that policy across departments works towards the same goals;
- Place a duty on Ministers to consider food in decisions across health, education, farming, planning, environment and trade;
- Require five-year Good Food Action Plans setting out how the targets will be met;
- Empower local leaders to have regard to food across their work to support local economies and reduce inequalities;
- Establish independent oversight to report annual progress publicly, so that commitments cannot be quietly dropped when priorities change.
Read our briefing "Fixing Food for Good", setting out the case for a Good Food Bill as a necessary statutory framework that can prevent a repeat of past failures by reorienting the UK's food system and provide certainty for citizens, farmers, growers, businesses and investors alike.
