The campaign for food system targets

Nick Hughes

Nick Hughes talks to Anna Taylor of The Food Foundation and Charlotte Wright from Elior to discuss the campaign for a Good Food Bill.

A new NGO-led campaign is calling on the UK Government to deliver a Good Food Bill. Supporters say that only by having food system targets written into legislation can they withstand a continuous cycle of political change and provide long-term stability for businesses and investors. In this week’s episode, Nick Hughes speaks to Anna Taylor of The Food Foundation, a driving force behind the campaign, and Charlotte Wright from Elior which is among over 100 organisations to have lent its support.

Subscribe to the podcast

Transcript

Nick Hughes: Food strategies come and food strategies go. But the lights still flash red on the dashboard of the UK food system, according to many experts. Has the time come for a good food bill? A new NGO led campaign is calling for the UK government to deliver a good food bill. Supporters say that only by having food system targets written into legislation can they withstand a continuous cycle of political change and provide long term stability for businesses and investors. Bidfood, Elior and Sodexo are among the businesses to have publicly declared their support for the bill. In this week’s episode of the Small Print, I speak with Anna Taylor, Chief Executive of the Food foundation, which along with Sustain and Green alliance is leading the campaign for a bill, and Elior’s Director of CSR and Food Strategy, Charlotte Wright. I began by asking Anna why the time has come for a good food bill.

Anna Taylor: First, we should say this is not a new idea. This was something that in fact was proposed in Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy recommendation 14. I think it was proposed setting out a sort of a legislative framework for policy development into the future in recognition of the fact that the challenge that we’re dealing with in the food system is not one that can be fixed within a single parliamentary term. This is a decadal shift that we’re looking to try and achieve in terms of pivoting the food system so that it delivers better health and environmental outcomes. And so we’ve got to have something which really sets in place that long term roadmap. But I think the other reason why, why the moment is so important right now is probably twofold. One, we are almost certainly entering the third food price shock that we’ll have seen in the last six years. We had the first one that as we came out of the COVID pandemic, the second one, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now the crisis in the Middle East. And those are those, you know, that’s a combination of zoonotic disease conflict and also this sort of reliance on these choke points in the system, in the food system, these narrow geographies, a small handful of them globally which when they get disrupted they have global, it has global ramifications. I think on top of that we’ve had cyber affecting Ms. And co op in the last couple of years, cyber attacks. And then we’ve got this backdrop of climate shocks which are increasing in intensity and are going to, and have already had and are going to increasingly have inflationary effects. So this increased world of kind of frequent shocks which are going to knock our food system. We’ve got to be thinking about not just the health and environmental consequences of our system, but also its resilience. And I think what these shocks are exposing are the severity of the consequences of the system not working as well as it could at the moment, both in terms of, I mean, we’ve seen that when the cost of living crisis, it means it pushes families into food insecurity, it means that they are forced to cut back on fruits and vegetables, the very thing that we need to be eating more of in order to deal with this really terrible health burden that we’ve got linked to our diets. I mean, that’s just one sort of thing that the cost of living crisis has exposed about the system. And so this frequency of shocks, the fact that we’re now in a period of government, I think probably the third, the second reason really is that we’re at a time when unusually, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs is actually thinking in a quite a joined up way around food. They’re both concerned about the affordability of healthy food. And that’s quite unusual historically actually for those two departments to have quite such a common agenda. They have other things they’re working on, of course, but that’s an area of distinct overlap. And I think that’s another reason why in terms of the political economy, the conversation now around a bill that would actually span the interests of those two departments and bring in the role of Department for Education, DWP and other departments that relate to food is the right moment.

Nick Hughes: Yes. Does this sort of coalescence of pressures, if you like, from food price shocks, environmental challenges around climate change and weather extremes, the burden on health services from the cost of treating diet related ill health, has it sort of underscored the fact that previous food strategies, as well meaning as they may be, and you know, we’ve had plenty of them, haven’t we, over the last 20 years. They’re just not sufficient to deliver the kind of change we need because they’re at risk of being unpicked by another government. They are often piecemeal in the policies that they’re proposing. So it’s, you know, we really need something on a statutory footing now to deliver that long term certainty.

Anna Taylor: Yeah, exactly. And I think what that succession of food strategies has shown, and I think we shouldn’t look at those things as if they were all just wasted effort. What they have done is they have, I think, hugely helped to build consensus about the diagnosis of the problem. I mean, I’ve heard ministers in this government say, we’re all clear on the problem, we all know what it is, we just need to move on from discussing what the problem is to moving into identifying the solution. And they’re right that that journey of successive food strategies which might not have delivered sort of big results in policy terms, have been that slow journey of building the discourse and the consensus about what the problem is. So they’re absolutely not a. Not a wasted effort. But you’re right, they’re just not delivering the change at the pace needed. And I mean, a great example is the childhood obesity target that was set halving childhood obesity by 2030, that was set in 2018. And levels of childhood obesity now are higher than they were in 2018. That target was not a statutory target. It was little more than an aspiration in a plan to tackle childhood obesity. But I think what we’ve seen is some of these policies taking, you know, I mean, advertising regulations is a great example, seven years to get into place, if you had a statutory target, that it would drive a level of prioritisation which would mean that policies couldn’t be left to sort of languish in the way that that one was. There would be an imperative on government to drive them through to deliver results. So. So, yeah, I think in that sense, the pivot now to a legislative framework is learning the lessons of the last few years in terms of sort of recognizing that in the absence of that, it’s going to be very, very difficult to deliver the transition that we, I think, all realize and recognise is needed now.

Nick Hughes: So you talk about statutory targets. What, in the Food Foundation’s view, should those key targets be?

Anna Taylor: So we’ve put together a proposition which you can find on our website. I should say this is very much a joint endeavour with Green alliance and Sustain as well. And what we’re proposing are three targets. One around reducing childhood obesity, including narrowing the gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and children from wealthier households. The second is around increasing fruit and veg consumption and included within that growing the proportion of fruit and veg that we eat. That is British grown. At the moment, about 78% of our fruit and veg is imported. So we’ve got a very heavy import dependence. That is a. That is a problem because a large proportion of the places from which we’re bringing in fruit and veg are very heavily exposed to climate change, particularly water stress. The Iberian Peninsula is the sort of. And Morocco is the kind of poster child illustration of that. And the importance of building some of this resilience around fruit and veg in particular, because these are the foods we need to be eating more of is important. And then the third out one is around for reducing food insecurity. And by this we mean household food insecurity. We’ve been tracking that in line with government data. We do it slightly more frequently than government, but our data very much aligns with theirs. And the very latest data we have shows that 11% of households are struggling to cook food on the table. That has upticked again. It went up very high during the cost of living crisis, has come down a little, but is now, worryingly, there’s signs it’s starting to increase again. And I think we just have to get ahead of this. I mean, when you look across the whole sort of public opinion, the sort of idea that food banks have become the kind of a routine way for big sections of the population to access their food is just, is not something that the British public are okay with. And we need to actually find a much more coherent way of addressing introducing some of these policy measures that will protect those households.

Nick Hughes: If we accept that delivering a bill such as this, it’s probably going to take a period of time, certainly if you look at the lessons from Scotland, which we might touch on a little bit later. So it requires a degree of cross party consensus, doesn’t it? And I just wonder whether you feel that that cross party consensus actually exists around food. There are certainly areas where, where successive governments have aligned around policy. I’d suggest whether that be sort of pushing through the marketing restrictions as you alluded to earlier. Public procurement targets have come up from both the Conservative and current labor government. But equally, as we heard at times during the EU referendum, there are very different visions of what the food system can and should deliver, aren’t there? And I just wonder what you feel are the risks of A gaining that consensus across political parties and B, the risks of any legislation being unpicked by a future government with a very different sort of political outlook.

Anna Taylor: A couple of points on that. I think the three areas that we have really focused on in the proposition for the bill, I think have cross party resonance. So one is child health. You touched on that in relation to the advertising restrictions. I think there is a broad view that government has a role in protecting children and in that sort of nanny state arguments sort of don’t apply to children in that sense. I mean, I think in some extent nanny state arguments are, well, actually to a large extent not felt by the public. They see the role of government as playing a protective role in creating environments which are conducive to good, to children thriving. So I think child health and a recognition that we’ve really taken some significant steps backward on children’s health in recent years is a broadly felt policy concern. The second is around inflation. I mean, cost of living. I mean, I think that’s sort of uniformly felt as be recognizing as that’s a sort of huge political pressure as

Charlotte Wright: well as this sort of real material

Anna Taylor: impact on people’s lives. And I think what we’re saying about the bill is that we’ve got to move to a future where we are less exposed to some of the. We can’t remove our exposure to these problems. We’re not going to, you know, we’re always going to be having a food system which is operating globally. But there are ways in which we can build our resilience to these shocks and make them less impactful on people’s lives. And that’s what this bill will do. And then I think the third area is, I mean, so that’s inflationary effects, but specifically the, the resilience in the sense of, you know, national food security is national security. That sort of sense of we have to be serious about our UK production. We’re focusing that argument on fruit and veg because we think the, the it’s, it’s undeniably, you know, I think whatever sort of side of the political spectrum you’re coming from, fruit and veg is the sort of no brainer when it comes to UK production. And so we’ve tried to focus in on the areas that we think will generate a breadth of political support. On your point about unpicking, in some ways that is the reason for primary legislation. Secondary legislation is a lot of the commitments which the government is putting in place now are going to come into force via secondary legislation. That is obviously a much more efficient route to, you know, managing the legislative process. Primary legislation is much harder to unpick. Of course, nothing is completely immune to that kind of unpicking, but it would put the food agenda on a much more solid footing in terms of its resilience to some of that political turmoil that could, could happen in the future. So yeah, in part it’s, but, but I think the other thing to note is the challenge around primary legislation is that the, the government has a huge legislative, primary legislative agenda. The, not least through all the work that’s going on around realignment with the European Union, through following all the sort of wider political conversations that are happening around that that’s going to bring a lot of legislation with it, which takes up a lot of legislative time. So that’s in some ways our biggest sort of practical barrier to getting a food bill on the statute on the bill list is that there’s just a ton of other legislation that’s higher up in the queue.

Nick Hughes: Yes, absolutely. And what struck me from reading the briefing paper was, among many things was the need to sort of align supply with demand. And what we are incentivized, incentivizing farmers to produce is aligned with what we’re being encouraged to eat. And I think there’s often been a kind of tension between the two. And you alluded to the DEFRA and DH SC being more aligned in how they work. But is vegetables and horticulture a really good example of where our ability to produce fruits and vegetables has declined over time and we’re not getting sufficient fruit and vegetables in our diet. And there’s an opportunity really there to say, look, let’s work to secure the future of UK horticulture in a way that supports a greater proportion of fruit and vegetables in diets. And this bill might be a mechanism actually for doing that.

Anna Taylor: Yeah, exactly. It’s. I mean, in fact, what we’ve seen is our self sufficiency in fruit and veg decline even further in recent years. So significant numbers of horticulture producers have been going out of business. So fruit and veg is, is the kind of core example. I think what we’re not saying is that we need to pivot back to sort of subsidizing production of particular types of food. But we are saying we need to be more deliberate in our thinking about the support that is given to farmers about aligning, as you say, our dietary goals with how we’re approaching farming and what we’re supporting, how we’re supporting farmers. So fruit and veg is the big one. The other really significant one is around beans and pulses. And it’s quite interesting what we’ve seen with just early bits of sort of reporting in the press in the last couple of weeks saying that farmers are thinking of switching, you know, from fertilizer intensive products to beans because of their nitrogen fixing qualities and the fact they don’t need as much fertilizer because of the cost of fertilizer going up as a result of the Middle east crisis. And when you look at what the sort of global modeling has been done around the planetary health diet, this is a diet that’s been sort of designed by the Lancet Commission, it’s called. They, I think the stat Is that to meet the. That diet the world needs to produce? I think it’s 163% more legumes and pulses. Now we can we grow a fair amount of fava beans in the uk, we export a load of them to Egypt and we feed the rest to animals and fish. There’s a, a case for us to be actually thinking about, oh, can we actually generate more of a market for fava beans that we grow here in the uk so that we’re less reliant on bringing in all our beans from Canada, but also thinking about their role more in the regenerative farming space, reducing our dependence on some of those fossil fuel inputs and also, and also thinking about, can we be actually growing both the supply and the demand for more beans so that they feature more prominently in what we’re eating, delivering all of those amazing health benefits, fiber in particular and of course, an affordable source of protein. So I think I would add in to the sort of core fruit and veg piece there, beans and legumes, because, again, that’s just a huge opportunity to. It’s almost there. Sort of like a bit of a magic bullet, I think, in terms of food system transformation, delivering all those environmental soil health benefits, and one again where I think we can be a bit more deliberate enough in our engagement with support to farmers to say, well, and looking at the consumption end. So public procurement in particular, how can we get this all joined up a bit more effectively? Growing more British beans, getting them into

Charlotte Wright: our schools and hospitals?

Nick Hughes: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a really nice lens, isn’t it, I think, to look at the sort of this coalition of food system challenges and opportunities through beans, which are, like you say, contribute to environmental sustainability, an affordable source of nutrition and, you know, opportunities to really increase UK production and also diversity as well of beans. Because, like you say, we tend to focus very specifically on fava beans in this country. But there are moves, I know, from the likes of hobma, DODS and Bold Bean Company to expand the range of beans that we eat. But talking of businesses and securing support from businesses, you’ve had a range of businesses already support this initial statement you put out in support of a good food bill, including from the food service and hospitality sector. How important is it for you that businesses do come out publicly in support of the bill, given how, you know, let’s be honest, they have the ear of ministers and historically, you know, ministers have been sensitive to the concerns of businesses.

Anna Taylor: Yeah, I mean, it’s really important and would definitely urge businesses listening to this, that. That may not have signed to get in touch and sign or sign on through the sign on link. It’s important. I mean, the only. I think it’s very important that we have a broad base of support for this campaign. You’ve raised it from a political perspective, that’s really important. But so too is that we have farming, the farming sector, the business community, the investor community, as well as the sort of health community. We have the BMA signed on, we have charities like Barnardo’s, we have, yeah, some of the major retailers and, and some of the farming groups as well. We’ve started that journey, but we’ve got a long way to go to build that base even further. And I think businesses are coming at it very much from the perspective of one, they’re worried about security of supply. They want to see the government send some stronger signals in this direction and this bill would do that for, for fruit and veg specifically. And I think they also want to see, they want to see more regulatory certainty. I think there’s a recognition that in the, at least the sort of health and obesity space that regulation, tougher regulation has become a kind of fact of life, that when you look at the cost to the nhs, there’s no future in which that regulatory agenda is going to sort of suddenly go away. But creating more certainty around it so that businesses can more effectively invest and plan is what many businesses are asking for. And so in that sense, that bill will, I think, serves their interests in those two ways, beyond the kind of their broader, of course, sort of CSR interests around the environmental and health consequences of the system as a whole. So I think there’s lots of reasons for businesses to sign on and I would, yeah, just definitely encourage, encourage more to do so or get in touch and have a conversation about it, because we’re definitely keen to build that really broad base of support.

Nick Hughes: And Anna, I wanted to ask you about lessons we can take from Scotland, because we should acknowledge, shouldn’t we, that Scotland has been on this journey with the Good Food Nation Bill, which is now an act. What. And you, you’ll obviously have been following that very closely, I’m sure. What, what lessons do you think can be learned in time, in terms of, you know, the time this could potentially take, the alliances that will need to be built, the concessions that might potentially need to be made to, to get a Good Food Bill, you know, into, into the statute.

Anna Taylor: But I mean, these things take a long time to actually land. There’s no, there’s no doubt about that we’ve definitely taken a very close look at how the Scotland process has happened, but also the elements of the Good Food Nation act which are in there, we’ve. We’ve proposed some slightly different routes, but very much drawing on that experience. So one element, for example, is there was one section of the process which protracted the conversation in Scotland was whether or not there should be a commission. And in the end, the government decided to introduce the Scottish Food Commission. It was just sort of getting off the ground now, actually, as a statutory body that would really review the plans which the different local areas are going to be developing and the health trusts and feed into the national plan as well. I think in England, we’re concerned that there is very, very little appetite for new bodies. We think that that role could be performed by the Food Standards Agency if they were given the powers to do so. And so we’ve recommended that route. I mean, in an ideal world, we would have our own body that was kind of doing this work. Something a bit like the Climate Change Committee, but for food. But I think it is. It’s unrealistic to be asking for that at this point. So there are. There’s a sort of slight difference of route there. I think the other thing we’re. We’ve. We’ve drawn quite a lot on their experience around local plans and that we’re recommending instead that the legislation we propose puts a duty on local authorities to have regard for food in their corporate plans. So this allows local authority, they don’t have to necessarily produce a food plan, but they do need to factor food into their plans. And we think that is a better way of allowing innovation to happen amongst local authorities that where they might approach the issue differently in different places, which is exactly kind of what’s needed. And they might look at it through the planning lens or the procurement lens, or they start that journey of sort of taking due regard for food. And I think that will avoid a situation the moment you’ve got lots of local authorities in Scotland. Of course, there are far fewer than we have here in England generating plans which the Scottish Food Commission will be reviewing. So we will avoid a huge kind of cost attached to a process of lots of local authorities generating plans that need to be centrally reviewed. So in that sense, I think, again, just trying to adapt the Scotland experience to a slightly different context here in England, but still draw some of those really important points, because the local plans are vital for the story around resilience. So very much sort of trying to learn from what Scotland’s done take the best bits that could be applied to England. But also I think we want to keep that conversation very close between the devolved nations and any proposition for a good food bill, because it’s possible that there’ll be some areas that that will develop in the Good Food Bill that might enable devolved nation legislation to progress more quickly. So we sort of in recognition that we want it to be enabling for devolved nations as well as serve its purpose in England.

Nick Hughes: This year sees the launch of the first ever Footprint Festival, a two day experiential and immersive sustainability festival set on a working farm in the harbor of the Hampshire countryside. Created for senior leaders across food service and hospitality, this one of a kind annual event takes place on September 17th and 18th. We’ll blend sensory experiences, transformative content, powerful networking and unforgettable food, drink and entertainment. Early bird tickets are now on sale. Visit footprintfestival.com for more details. Elior is among more than a hundred organisations, including a wide range of businesses, to unite behind the campaign. I asked the caterers director of CSR on Food Strategy Charlotte Wright, why Elior has joined the call for a good food bill.

Charlotte Wright: Elior operates at the heart of the UK food system, so what I mean by that is that we’re serving meals across workplaces, in schools, events, health care and in public sector settings. So we’re really seeing firsthand how diet, affordability and sustainability intersect. We at Elior, we recently launched the Elior Food Strategy just last year. And what the food strategy does Elior prioritize is really the same values as the Good Food bill. So when I saw the Good Food Bill, I was like, this is excellent timing for us and obviously long overdue. Within our strategy, we’ve set targets on nutrition and sustainability, including on our carbon reduction targets and local sourcing. They’re actually separate but obviously intertwined targets because the two don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but are equally important to us and to our clients. So these are really the key drivers of the strategy, alongside customer satisfaction and commercial successful menus. So that’s why we’ve joined it. You know, it really aligns to what we stand for as a business and what we’re trying to progress on now. So that’s from a business perspective, but from a human element, well, it’s, you know, something that society needs.

Nick Hughes: Yes, that’s really interesting. So you clearly see a good food bill as being complementary to Elliot’s own food strategy. What would you specifically like to see prioritized in such A bill, Charlotte.

Charlotte Wright: Well, so when I was digesting this, there’s actually, there’s three priorities I want to see. Firstly, clear, measurable national targets. So we’ve set targets partly because, you know, targets are important for us to evidence to our clients that we take these topics seriously. And also we answer to shareholders. So, you know, our targets are set and we’re working towards them, but they’re not necessarily universal at the moment and our clients have differing targets too. So I’d like to see clear, measurable national targets on diet related health outcomes, sustainable sourcing and of course on reducing food inequality as well. So that’s really important. Goes without saying that without measurable targets nationally, then progress remains inconsistent. So that’s the first priority. There’s a second one, and that would be about public procurement reform, which would just be so powerful. So as I mentioned that we operate within public sector, public sector catering has enormous potential to shape the food system and I believe that it really can set the standard and the baseline of what we should become expected to see, like I say, as a sort of, as a baseline. So within that we’d like to see stronger intercourse and more enforceable standards across schools, hospitalities and government. And those frameworks reward the quality and sustainability and the nutritional values over the commercials. The third thing I mentioned, there’s three, this is around long term policy alignment. This is really critical and I can get into this more. But this is about better integration between health, agriculture, environment and education policy that helps stability in standards that I’ve mentioned to enable investment and innovation. And I want to add that we have really high quality, nutritious, nutritious produce available in the uk. But the smaller food businesses, and although we’re a large business, we at Elior, we’re, we’re relatively small when you think we’re competing with large retailers and large food manufacturers. So look, we, you know, we’re all looking to get the best price for this really great, high quality, nutritious produce that is available. And what I’d love to see is more consistency in these higher standards, such as, you know, including animal welfare, for example, regenerative practices. And we want that to become the norm, not a premium. And that would be just, I mean, how wonderful would that be if we could come to expect that as the, as the norm?

Nick Hughes: And a few things to pick up on there. I mean, firstly, the point about public procurement, a classic example, I think, of a policy which seems to have cross government supports. You know, the previous government had a notional target for 50% of public sector food to be sourced locally and to higher environmental standards. And that has carried over into this government, but for one reason or other it hasn’t actually been enacted as yet. So a sort of challenge around, you know, the policy environment, I guess, not being at risk of five year political cycles. Yeah, just, just, just emphasize again why long term stability in food policy is key to a business like Elior delivering your commercial, environmental and social ambitions.

Charlotte Wright: Okay, I’ll, I’ll give you the context of Elior. So operationally we’re across the sectors that I’ve mentioned and budgets are extremely tight. So we’re, we’re looking at how we can deliver nutritious, sustainable meals in a school setting, in a care setting, but also within workplaces and high end hospitality. So our teams continuously working really hard deliver the best food offering with those targets in mind, you know, that I’ve set as director of Food strategy and sustainability. I’m, you know, I’m pushing them to deliver on these outcomes across all of those sectors, but at the same time, and I’ll hopefully this will be clear when I’ve got to kind of the next point around why it’s, why it’s difficult in the current sort of environment. So we’ve got all these sectors that we’re operating in and we’ve got a very diverse range of menus that we deliver. This creates a multifaceted, very complex supply chain. And that supply chain is impacted by global disturbances, price shocks. We’re seeing more challenges obviously from climate impacts as well on crop yields, availability. And then you throw in other commercial pressures such as increased national insurance contributions. That’s not just felt by us, that’s felt by our clients and they’re all tightening their budgets too. We’re always looking at, you know, how can we get through the most recent economic tension that we’ve got, the most recent commercial challenge that we’ve got. So we’re already dealing with this tension of doing the right thing nutritionally and environmentally while remaining commercially viable in this cost constrained environment. So having long term something embedded into law that we’re all working towards makes that business case a lot easier for us to invest.

Nick Hughes: And that’s the point Anna was making, that it feels very pertinent now to be calling for a good food bill. Because like you’ve alluded to, there are so many challenges facing businesses right now, not just in the food service sector clearly, but the hospitality and food service sector is at the, you know, the coal face of them in terms of geopolitics. Domestic politics, environmental and social factors all impacting businesses ability to consistently provide nutritious, sustainable, affordable meals to your clients and customers. So is your feeling that now is the moment and we really do need to seize this opportunity to build stability and resilience, I guess, too, into the UK food system?

Charlotte Wright: Yeah, absolutely. Now is the moment. We’re seeing really strong signals of intent, you know, in business and as individuals, you know, our customers are more in tune than they ever have been. So the signals are there. Net zero. Public health, you know, we’re all taking our health more seriously than we ever have done historically too. And you know, environmentally, I think we’re becoming more educated around the impact of food. Biodiversity is becoming a much more understood priority in agriculture, but it’s not measurable at scale, especially for food businesses. So we really need to have clear roadmap that we can all get on board with, work together collectively whilst we’ve got this momentum. It really feels like there’s this momentum, but everybody and everyone’s trying their best, aren’t they, with their own individual targets and there’s lots of groups working together. I do think the thing that’s missing here is government taking the lead.

Nick Hughes: And do you feel it’s important for businesses to lend their voices to these NGO led campaigns for a food bill so that politicians understand that the businesses want this on a statutory footing as much as campaigners?

Charlotte Wright: Yes, yes. So absolutely, it’s very important for businesses to support NGO led calls for a food bill and it’s never been more important. I’m really excited because overall the Good Food Bill represents an opportunity to create a joined up national approach that enables both public and private sector organisations to deliver better outcomes at scale. Businesses must lend their voice and this isn’t just for food businesses, it’s not just a food business problem. I talk about people and society and it really doesn’t matter what business you’re in, we’re all impacted here. And when businesses speak up, it signals. This is the really key part in terms of, you know, getting the attention from government that this is, you know, this is needed, is that it’s not just a campaigning thing, it’s not just a campaigning issue, but it’s an economic and operational priority which gives policymakers confidence that change is deliverable scale. So we must get as many businesses involved as possible to show that they support the Good Food Bill.

Nick Hughes: Thanks to Anna and to Charlotte for sharing their insights. You can find more details on the campaign for a Good Food Bill on the Food Foundation’s website. We’ll be back next week with another episode of the Small Print. If you like what you’ve heard, please take a moment to rate, share and subscribe.