Food Foundation calls for robust regulatory mechanisms in response to UK’s new Food Strategy

The Food Foundation had responded to the Government’s new Food Strategy White Paper.

The Government’s new Food Strategy was set to lay out a long-term plan for incentivising the food system to shift towards the provision of nourishing, sustainable and affordable food, and away from food.

With the prices of food and fuel surging, this ambition is more urgent than ever, as more and more households who are struggling to pay the bills are put at even greater risk of diet-related disease.

The Food Foundation has responded to the new strategy, saying “disappointingly, today’s White Paper mostly misses this mark. The need for a political champion to lead this agenda has never been greater.”

While the foundation welcome several of the new commitments that have been made, such as to a new horticulture strategy for England, a land use framework, mandatory buying standards for food in all public sector settings, and mandatory business reporting, many of them will flounder without new legislation to make them stick.

Despite recognising some good idea within the recommendations, the organisation have said that without robust regulatory mechanisms to ensure that they can be delivered and enforced the proposals do not have the clout that will be necessary to deliver real impact.

And without primary legislation to introduce long-term targets and accountability mechanisms for shifting the food system, the Food Foundation do not believe that the strategy is up to the challenge of delivering the consistency of progress that is needed over the long-term.

Anna Taylor, Executive Director of The Food Foundation said: "Today’s Food Strategy shows that no one in leadership in government appears to have really grasped the scale and urgency of the challenges posed to our health and our planet by the food system. What’s more, these challenges are growing exponentially with the cost of living crisis.

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