The government is launching a major public consultation to gauge support for measures such as mandatory health reporting and policies to reduce meat consumption, under its new Food Strategy.
Defra has revealed it will set up a new Citizens Advisory Council, which will report to ministers alongside the industry-dominated Food Strategy Advisory Board announced last month.
It said it wanted to “give the public a voice” in the direction of the strategy, with a series of “large, multi-stakeholder events” set to run over the next two months.
However, the proposals for a consumer-led council go further than environment secretary Steve Reed’s previous call for a “coalition” approach between government and the industry to tackle the food industy biggest challenges including “soaring” obesity levels, fairness in the supply chain and the UK’s food resilience.
Defra’s approach carries echoes of a wide-scale citizen’s engagement exercise run by former health tsar Henry Dimbleby for his 2021 National Food Strategy, which faced interruptions due to the pandemic. It found strong support for measures to increase the environmental sustainability of food. Failure to do so, its participants warned, would lead to “devastating and irreversible impacts” on the health of our planet”.
It also called for the food system to be “flipped” to make healthy food more affordable and accessible than unhealthy food and measures to restrict advertising of food with high emissions.
A more recent report in January this year by the government-funded Energy Demand Research Centre also reported strong public backing for food systems to change including further regulation to tackle obesity and reduce emissions.
On its “citizens’ panel”, 90% of members supported stronger regulation to promote healthier food and restrict the promotions of food with high emissions, including meat and dairy products.
A source close to Defra‘s discussions said: “It’s good Defra is listening to range of stakeholders and voices, although they pretty much know what they want to do already.
“The biggest challenge will be to get cross-departmental support.
“Health and obesity will be a key part of the strategy but responsibility for that sits with DHSC.”
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