Defra must seize the opportunity to transform our food system for good

In the manner of someone with more pressing issues at play, the government has quietly pushed back the publication of its white paper on the National Food Strategy.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear that we are sleep-walking into a major health crisis, the reality that obesity rates are nearly doubling by the time children leave primary school is frankly terrifying – and that figure is on the rise.

This is why the forthcoming white paper is a crucial opportunity for intervention and change.

The government commissioned the two-part Henry Dimbleby-led report, which fills over 400 pages in total, in order to set out a vision and plan for a better food system.

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What it has told us is the way we feed ourselves as a nation is fundamentally broken. At a time when the fragility of our food, health and ecological systems have never been more apparent, the report calls for a full-blown overhaul. The problem, it states, is systemic.

With hundreds of obesity policies launched by UK governments over the last three decades, this poses a high risk of becoming just another costly failure. A fat-shaming marketing campaign with the onus on individual willpower, dispensed by the nanny state.

Or, to focus on the positives, we have the opportunity to improve the quality, provenance, taste and accessibility of the food we eat.

We have heard the rhetoric, but government needs to support the strategy and its call to challenge today’s consumer culture and rewrite the nation’s relationship with the food we eat. It is time we recognised that manufacturers and retailers create the food landscape – consumers just live in it.

From a UK food producer perspective, legislation provides the opportunity to level the playing field for those that have invested in the development of healthier alternatives.

For so many of us now, nothing is more important than our health and the health of our loved ones. But that is not to say it is easy – the numbers alone tell us this.

As a parent and producer of healthier cheeses, I would welcome legislation to support the drive towards healthier diets and a long-term shift in our food culture.

The next six months present a critical junction and we all have a responsibility to do what is right for our health and the health of our children. To help them make better health choices and to make those choices more widely available – both through access and affordability.

A delay in Defra’s response can only be fruitful if it means this white paper is being considered to ensure it delivers impact. Rumours that the present government’s wavering popularity may negatively influence the impact of the strategy would be a travesty. As we all know, the right decision is often not the most popular one.

Moving health interventions upstream through the strategy can help turn the tide on non-communicable diseases and their costly impact on the NHS.

Soaring living costs on the back of the pandemic only exacerbate the situation. The UK now has more food banks – utilised by over 2.5 million citizens – than McDonald’s, yet we have the fifth-largest national economy in the world.

If this government is serious about levelling up, there are worse places to start than the food we put on our plates.