What can the food and drink industry do to help fight obesity?

It sometimes seems to me that some contributors to the current food and health debate imagine that the UK has a nationalised food sector, and that governments can announce “five year plans” for production or with a specific health aim in mind. I believe that the industry has a role to play in the health debate and a responsibility to its consumers to fulfill, and the food and drink industry is totally clear what its role is: to provide, tasty, wholesome and above all, safe, food to every person in the country.

A crucial responsibility in this is to respond to consumer demands, which have changed in ways we could not have envisaged over the last 10 or 15 years and that trend continues as consumers’ lifestyles change.

What we have in the UK is an industry composed of several thousand manufacturing companies, a very efficient retail sector which delivers enormous benefits to its customers, and an “out of home” industry which is growing at a fantastic pace – a third of all expenditure on food and drink in the UK is on consumption outside the home.

In attempting to work out just what might be its role in the obesity debate, UK food and drink manufacturers have taken a holistic view of the issue – solutions will not be found by taking a one-dimensional view of the problem, for example focussing exclusively on the input side of the equation ie nutrition and diet alone.

Obesity is a complex function of a relatively simple equation – the wrong balance between calories consumed and calories expended. And while there is no doubt that diet has an impact, the importance of genetics, of psychological and emotional aspects, and the sometimes significant differences in the metabolism of each individual cannot be overlooked.

I believe therefore that the most effective way of tackling this important public health problem is clear: people must be helped to make more informed choices about their diet and their lifestyles, and this is somewhere the food industry can play a useful role.

Our success stems from understanding consumers – after all, the industry communicates with tens of millions of them every day. The Food and Drink Federation’s recently published Food and Health Manifesto, sets out our industry’s commitment to work constructively with consumers, the government and others to help find solutions to the complex issues.

More informative labelling

FDF members are committed to working constructively with the government and other stakeholders to ensure the availability of clearer nutritional information under revised EU provisions.

Meanwhile the FDF will encourage its members to provide on food packaging full nutritional information as defined in current EU legislation (even where this is not legally necessary), salt equivalence as well as the legally required sodium information, and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) to provide a simple ready reckoner.

Products

FDF members are committed to continuing to reduce levels of sugar, fat and salt in their products and providing lower salt, lower sugar and lower fat options where technologically possible, safe and acceptable to consumers. Portion sizes

FDF members are committed to exploring new approaches for individual portion sizes to help reduce over- consumption.

Vending

FDF members are committed to removing all vending machines from primary schools unless their provision is specifically requested by the school/LEA, to removing branding from vending machines in primary and secondary schools where this is requested by the school/LEA, and to broadening choice.

Advertising to children

FDF members are committed to working with Ofcom and the government on further tightening of self-regulatory codes, and discussing with them the whole range of concerns relating to advertising to children.

Encouraging healthy lifestyles

FDF members are committed to establishing and promoting healthy workplace schemes on diet and lifestyle in premises belonging to companies in the food chain and within their communities.

Public education

FDF members are committed to participating, together with the rest of the food chain and advertising industries, in a government-led campaign of public education on healthy eating and healthy lifestyles. This could include delivering messages on product packaging.

The last two commitments are important. As employers and providers of services we, with the rest of the food chain, have an enormous opportunity to influence and promote balanced lifestyle within our own businesses. Many of the three million people plus we employ directly, as well as their families and friends, are already being engaged in health and wellbeing programmes designed not just to combat obesity but to help provide the much-sought-after healthy lifestyle.

And between us the companies in the food chain connect in a pretty direct manner with just about every single person in the country. We can take and amplify government information to a degree never before achieved. So we have offered our products and their packaging as a conduit to a government-led but joint, multi-media consumer information programme.

It is I must admit a little saddening to see that almost every time a manufacturer announces that they have refined their processes or recipes to offer “healthier” options to consumers of their (often much loved) brands, or created an initiative at a community level, we hear cries of “It’s a cynical marketing ploy”. Companies exist to market their products, and while of course they are commercial entities, they are also important members of their communities.

I do not think that the government wants a society where the state tries to dictate what we should eat or how we should live: ministers are casting around for simple solutions – the much talked about “traffic light” labelling which puts a red sticker on cheese, for example, but I do not think that there are any quick and easy, simple answers – believe me: I’ve looked. The good news, however, is that the UK industry has moved beyond sound bites to practicable, workable contributions set down in black and white. The forthcoming White Paper should seek to reflect this and engage the substantial resources the food chain has offered to this cause.

Martin Paterson is the deputy director general of the Food and Drink Federation