WE ARE EXCITED TO INTRODUCE OUR STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH The Food Foundation
The Food Foundation is a charity which works to change food policy and business practice to ensure everyone, across the UK nations, can afford and access a healthy and sustainable diet.
Their work is predominantly about driving policy and business change. The Food Foundation works in partnership with researchers, campaigners, community bodies, industry, government, citizens and investors to galvanise the UK’s diverse agents of change.
The organisation was founded in 2014 as an independent policy think tank to challenge the current food system and how it was impacting the public’s health and the affordability of healthy food, particularly focused on lower income families.
We asked The Food Foundation…
Why are you a Strategic Partner of Future Food Movement?
“At The Food Foundation, our focus is on improving citizens’ access to healthy and sustainable diets. We work by building and synthesising strong evidence, shaping powerful coalitions, harnessing citizens’ voices and driving progress with impactful communications. We wanted to join the Future Food Movement to have the opportunity to join a community of likeminded organisations, share our expertise on healthy and sustainable diets and collaborate on driving food system change.
We regularly engage with a range of businesses, advocating for and helping them improve access to healthy and sustainable diets by creating better food environments for citizens. Our business-focused project, Plating Up Progress, assesses the progress being made by major UK-operating businesses within the food retail, foodservice and restaurant chain sectors. We look at key themes relating to the transition to a healthy and sustainable food system and assess their progress in supporting this via 20 metrics. We want companies to set SMART targets and disclose data on these metrics to establish healthy and sustainable business portfolios and to help shift consumption patterns. Our three core diet metrics are:
- % of sales of high fat salt and sugar (HFSS) foods
- % of sales of fruit and vegetables
- % of sales of types of protein (animal and plant)
Alongside this, our Peas Please project, which ended in 2023, brought together partners from across the food system – from farmers and retailers to restaurant chains, caterers and manufacturers – all with the common goal of increasing vegetable consumption, with a particular focus on low-income groups and children.
We also work with a group of investors – The Investor Coalition on Food Policy – for which we act as the secretariat. The coalition exists to harness the power of the investment community to engage with the Government on food system related issues. The scope of the coalition is regulation which is required to support the creation of a healthy, sustainable and affordable food system.”
WHat are your key climate and/or health commitments?
“Currently we are calling on policymakers to:
- Make healthy and sustainable food affordable
- Stop the junk food escalation
- Invest in children’s diets
- Make it easier to eat sustainably
- Unleash the full potential of the food system
You can find more detail in our election 2024 manifesto – Nourishing the Nation.
We would like to see businesses:
- Setting SMART targets and reporting on the 3-diet metrics: healthy & sustainable food sales, including fruit & vegetables and plant-based proteins, and away from food that is high in fats, salt and sugar.
- Reporting on these targets so their progress can be measured
- Ensuring there is board-level accountability for the targets that are being set.
You can see our other business asks and find out more about our work with businesses by checking out our Plating Up Progress project and 2023 State of the Nation’s Food Industry report.”
What climate actions or results are you most proud of?
Our Peas Please partnership project has shown just what can be achieved by creating a diverse community of supporters working together to increase the availability and accessibility of veg for everyone in the UK to support more veg being eaten. 110 organisations have made pledges to make veg more accessible and pledgers have sold or served 1.1 billion extra portions of veg over the past five years.
Eating more veg is a win–win for both the UK’s health and environment. Our reportfound that increasing fruit and veg intake to five-a-day (while also reducing meat and sugar consumption) would lead to significant health and environmental benefits in the UK. For example, increased vegetable production and consumption, coupled with reduced meat consumption could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support biodiversity due to a reduction in overall land requirement, allowing some land to be used instead for species-diverse habitats like natural land covers.
We took youth leaders from all over the world to COP26 in Glasgow where they were able to talk to business leaders and policymakers about the actions they want to see taken to create a healthier and more sustainable food system. The same youth leaders also shared their Actions 4 Change at the UN Food Systems Summit and continue to campaign within their own countries.
Finally, what is IT like to work at The Food Foundation?
“The Food Foundation is all about finding creative and innovative ways to catalyse food system change. All our work is evidence based and our trustworthiness and credibility are core to our reputation, as well as our relationships with businesses and policymakers.
A crucial aspect of the way we work is through collaboration so we’re looking forward to seeing how being part of this new community can bring new opportunities to drive the change we want to see.
If you’d like to connect or find out more about our work with food businesses, you can contact chloe.mackean@foodfoundation.org.uk; if you’re interested in our Investor Coalition on Food Policy, contact sarah.buszard@foodfoundation.org.uk.”
—-
Anna Taylor, Executive Director – The Food Foundation will join us at our July Community Huddle: Post-Election Food Industry Debrief, to unpack the implications of the election results on the food landscape and what industry needs to know.
MEMBERS SAVE YOUR SEAT HERE
