The Food Standards Agency is to broaden its remit into diet and sustainability to help support the government’s crackdown on obesity and the climate breakdown.
The UK’s food watchdog launched its new five-year strategy on Friday, reaffirming its commitment to keeping food safe but said it needed to widen its scope in response to changes across the food system.
The regulator insisted it would not take on any new policymaking powers but would support other government departments to hit targets for healthy and sustainable food.
“FSA is not changing its statutory position in any shape or form,” FSA chair Susan Jebb told The Grocer this week. “What we’re doing is saying perhaps a bit more boldly than we’ve done before, look at us, we’re here to help.”
This will typically mean leveraging its scientific, research, and inspectorate capabilities to help drive and inform improvements across the food system.
In English schools, for example, FSA inspectors will start checking school lunches in a pilot study later this year amid concerns that some are struggling to meet national standards such as no more than two portions of deep-fried food a week.
“That’s a good example of us supporting DfE [Department for Education] to think about how we can provide greater assurances that school food standards are being met,” said Jebb. “Because if you have standards in place without any scrutiny, it’s only really guidance.”
Where exactly the FSA will focus its efforts was still undecided, said Jebb, with the body not receiving any significant increase in funding or resource to support its new role.
“We’re going to have to be really careful and thoughtful about where we put our energies and efforts so that we make a difference,” she said. “And if we can show that we can make a difference, then we can perhaps start making the case to do a bit more. But right now, it’s signalling to other departments that we’re keen to support them in matters relating to food.”
More than three in five people are concerned about the impact of food production on the environment, according to a recent FSA poll, while more than half are concerned about the health of their personal diet.
The FSA previously held certain health responsibilities under Tony Blair when it was tasked with cutting salt intake across the UK. In 2004, it developed a programme of salt reduction that cut the national intake by 15% within seven years and inspired many other countries to take action.
In 2011, however, its powers were taken from it and passed to the government’s Responsibility Deal, which favoured voluntary agreements from industry.
Sue Davies, head of consumer protection and food policy, at Which? welcomed the move. “At a time when the food system is facing unprecedented challenges and pressures, consumers need a strong, independent and consumer-focused Food Standards Agency that will be able to demonstrate that it will always put consumer interests first,” she said.
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