Supermarket leaders have urged the government to reject calls for the Food Standards Agency to take on responsibility for the war on obesity.
A report by the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee last week called for the body to oversee new compulsory targets for the proportion of HFSS food sold by large companies, as well as mandatory reformulation programmes for salt and sugar.
The FSA has welcomed the report, which says it should step in to fill the void left by the winding up of Public Health England, and wants the FSA to advise the government on policies ranging from HFSS promotions to how to tackle fears over ultra-processed foods.
However, critics have warned the FSA does not have the resources to tackle the new role and today the British Retail Consortium said it believed the DHSC should take leadership of the government’s obesity strategy.
“We are watching these proposals closely,” said BRC director of food & sustainability Andrew Opie. “Given that nutrition policy in England sits with DHSC and that any obesity policy will need cross-Whitehall coordination and buy in, we believe it would be better that it sits with a core department as part of a comprehensive food strategy.”
In its evidence to the committee, the consortium called for a cross-government obesity strategy based on regulation across the food industry to deliver a “level playing field” between different sectors.
It claimed supermarkets had led the way in making food healthier, but that other food businesses had not kept pace.
“It is important that regulation forms part of a wider strategy, is assessed after introduction to ensure its effectiveness and is implemented pragmatically to give businesses time to comply,” the BRC said.
The Lords committee has lauded the success of the FSA’s salt reduction strategy, prior to it becoming part fo the Responsibility Deal in 2011.
It wants the FSA to sit at the heart of a “radical new approach” to policing the industry, which it claims has been heavily to blame for the obesity crisis.
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