This year’s City Food and Drink Lecture was a timely and at times uncomfortable reminder of the scale of the challenge facing our industry.
As the event celebrates its 25th anniversary, Professor Susan Jebb’s central question was a simple one. Can Britain’s food and drink industry make the next 25 years healthier than the last? Susan was very open about the fact that she has been working in the space for the best part of 40 years and tackling the rising obesity challenge has proven harder than she thought. Obesity now affects more than a quarter of adults in the UK, and 20% of children by the time they leave primary school. The cost is staggering. Over £23bn to the wider economy when you take the impact on the NHS and overall productivity. That’s equivalent to 10% of all income tax receipts.
Food is now the leading cause of avoidable ill health in a food system which has been built to encourage overconsumption of the least nutritious but most sensory inducing foods, supplied by businesses with the deepest pockets to ensure their marketing always reaches you.
But Professor Jebb was very keen to show optimism, drawing parallel’s between the steep decline in smoking rates in the UK, from a high of approximately 50% of males in the 1970’s to approximately 10% today. How many “smoky rooms” are we accepting as the norm when it comes to our food habits and it is only when it changes that we will appreciate the social damage it is causing? The recent spotlight on Ultra Processed Food’s (UPF’s) has brought the topic to the front of people’s minds, with 79% stating they are concerned about UPF’s and 50% of people who are actually changing habits to tackle it. This is a good indicator of a social shift in awareness which is a far stronger force for change than any policy or environmental influences ever could be.
The other significant development in recent times is the prevalence and effectiveness of GLP-1 medications. With an estimated 2 million people in the UK already using GLP-1’s, this is only set to increase as the delivery method becomes simpler and the cost becomes more accessible to a wider audience. This area alone is causing a shift towards more nutrient dense foods, delivering the required amounts of fibre but with less calories which naturally lends itself to primary and minimally processed foods.
This has been and remains an incredibly challenging topic to navigate and one which won’t just have one solution but will require a combination of many. It is clear there are significant opportunities for many food producers, but they are likely the ones with the smallest marketing budgets given the structure of our current food systems. That said, Professor Jebb rightly pointed out that the food industry has proven itself to be one of the most creative and resilient sectors, time and time again. Of course, any changes will need to be aligned to profitability as well as consumer demand, but it feels like there is a genuine opportunity to grasp. Professor Jebb left us with a quote from her namesake, Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of the Save the Children organisation “It is impossible only if we make it so. It is impossible only if we refuse to attempt it”
This is a topic that will continue to be at the heart of the sector for years to come, and I look forward to seeing how it develops and the various opportunities it creates along the way. On the whole, it was another successful and insightful City Food and Drink Lecture and it was great to see so many of our industry connections in one place.
Morten Andresen, Director – Fresh Food
