Last month it was policies designed to recycle more drinks packaging that the UK government managed to derail and kick into the future. This week it was the turn of the proposed ban on bogof and multibuy deals for unhealthy food that was shoved back to October 2025. “[…] at a time when household budgets are under continuing pressure from the global rise in food prices, it is not fair for government to restrict the options available to consumers on their weekly shop”, explained Rishi Sunak.
ONS figures this week showed food and drink price inflation starting to drop off. Still, the prime minister said he is firm believer in people’s right to choose (and, if polls are to be believed, it’s unlikely they will choose him at the next general election). Advertising bans on unhealthy food have also been delayed to October 2025. Which means food companies choose what to push.
As Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and public health in the US, author and long-time thorn in the side of the food industry and governments, has said: “Marketing is an enormous influence on food choice [and it’s] particularly insidious because we don’t recognise marketing as such. It’s just seen as part of the landscape and affects us at an unconscious level. Marketing to children is especially egregious, especially because it is so effective in encouraging them to demand junk food.”
At the time of that quote, 2020, she was encouraged by the UK government’s obesity plans. “Cheers to the UK government for this. Stick with it,” she said. Three years on and the strategy is falling apart.
The Food and Drink Federation of course welcomed the government’s “pragmatism”. Campaigners said the promotional deals simply lead shoppers to “impulsively buy more unhealthy food, rather than make savings from food already on their shopping list”. Or being bullied by their children of course.
What does this mean for the obesity strategy for England? More drugs and exercise, it seems, which suits food companies and their lobbyists. The food industry is caught in a tug of war between affordability, value in the eyes of consumer, sustainability and health, as Steph Cullen from Circana in a piece for The Grocer. Cullen cited data from Samworth Brothers showing that product lines classed as ‘average’ in terms of HFSS sell 30 times more than the healthier alternative.
Eye-watering pint prices
Foodservice brands are also being stretched by these competing challenges. This has led to reports of watering down beer as pints in some places reach £8. Drinkflation is currently the media’s favourite portmanteau and is forcing brewers to make tough decisions.
Providing value during the cost of living crisis has also, we are told, lead to the provision of bigger meal portions, bulked out by cheaper carbohydrates for example. This can lead to both weight and food waste issues.
Foodservice companies continue to struggle to tackle food waste but what better time to do so than during a cost of living crisis? Consumers also want to save by limiting their food waste – an issue that concerns UK citizens more than any other issue related to food, trumping even sugar content and animal welfare, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Interesting to see The Guardian reporting resurgence in tasting menus with restaurants able to order precisely what they need, so reducing waste and prep time. Let’s not forget that many hospitality businesses restricted menus during the pandemic and consumers barely batted an eyelid.
Still on food waste, we turn to Starbucks and Hubbub – a relationship that appears to be going from strength to strength with various campaigns on the go. The latest one is ‘Eat it up’, a £200,00 grant fund to support projects aimed at addressing food waste throughout the supply chain. Applications close on July 21st.
Battle of the bottles
Discussions are taking place that could see extended producer responsibility for packaging delayed. It wouldn’t be surprising – after all, everything else is.
As avid followers of the Digest are aware, deposit return schemes (DRS) are also running well behind. On Friday last week, the British Soft Drinks Association, the Scottish Retail Consortium and the British Beer & Pub Association called time on their voluntary funding for Circularity Scotland Limited, the administrator for Scotland’s ill-fated DRS (delayed until 2025). The administrator is now in administration. Sixty people have lost their jobs.
Tories also want to see Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens minister responsible for delivering DRS, lose hers, according to the BBC. It’s yet another political stunt in a green policy beset by them. Politicians in Holyrood and Westminster are partly to blame but so too is industry. Relentless lobbying of what they said (belatedly) was a confusing and costly scheme has left them demanding a “fresh start”.
And now it’s the turn of Wales to begin their own battle of the bottles. Welsh ministers say they are cracking on with their own DRS which, unlike England’s, includes glass. Scotland wants glass within scope too, which makes England the outlier, doesn’t it?
Across the Channel meanwhile there is also work to be done on DRS’s. In an interview with The Parliament magazine, Peter Harding, the new president of the European soft drinks industry group UNESDA, called for more “understanding” and “more trust” between regulators and industry. Given that the article also appears to be written by Harding, it’s an inauspicious start.
Don’t forget to check the other news this week: Yeo Valley and First Milk have announced they are working on a big pool of regenerative milk together; more drinks brands go for paper-based packaging; and, if you can stomach it, there is more reaction to that bogof ban.
