Walking up to the door of No 10 Downing Street always feels special. But last week, the trip felt extra special because I was with an extraordinary group of people. I joined five top food campaigners to deliver a letter to the prime minister and several key cabinet ministers calling on them to take action on ultra-processed food and to unleash Britain’s food and cooking culture.
Our group of six spanned multiple generations, from London Cookery School founder Rosalind Rathouse, in her 80s, to the baby in my tummy, not yet born. Together we were united by one thing: our desire for Britain to have the most nourishing, sustainable, equitable and rich food and cooking culture in the world, and for that to happen fast.
As we walked back out the security gates, one of the group turned to me and asked: “Dolly, what actually happens to the letter? Will they read it and will anything happen?”
Supposing the prime minister and his colleagues do read the letter, I know from my own research they will face massive political and commercial challenges trying to make Britain’s food nourishing and sustainable. One is figuring out how to do this without destroying major food companies and hampering economic growth.
I’ve spent most of the past decade trying to understand why the UK government has not successfully tackled diet-related problems like obesity, nor been able to transform our food for the better. My PhD research found the UK government published almost 700 obesity policies between the early 1990s and 2020, yet there was no reduction in obesity rates or related health inequalities in that time.
Last year, I teamed up with Henry Dimbleby, who led the government-commissioned National Food Strategy, to interview 20 prime ministers, health secretaries and other senior politicians from the past 30 years. We asked them why the politics of food and health policy are so challenging, why they think they collectively failed to improve Britain’s food, and what they advised today and tomorrow’s politicians to do.
The findings were fascinating. We published them in ‘Nourishing Britain: A Political Manual for Improving the Nation’s Health’ along with the full transcripts from all our interviews. The document was intended as a practical political manual. We are pleased to know it’s been read by the government’s most senior politicians and used in ministerial briefings and presentations.
Fear of regulation
One of the top barriers we found was politicians’ nervousness about regulating major food corporations despite recognising the serious harm caused by the unhealthy, ultra-processed food and drink they make. Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair said: “[We] can directly see the causal link between the unhealthy food environment that has grown with the rapidly increasing rates of obesity that we see in young children, teens and adults”.
Yet, regulating the food industry was perceived to drive up food costs, reduce consumer choice, dampen healthy competition, cause job losses, annoy industry leaders and harm economic growth. Former Conservative environment secretary Michael Gove gave us an example of the argument he would face in government: “Why do you want to undermine a commercial success in this country? British sugar is a huge success … why would you want to have not a single sugar beet grown in East Anglia and people losing their jobs in Docklands?”
These concerns block policy change despite the strong public support for making Britain’s food nourishing and sustainable. We know from research, polling and citizen food conversations that people want the government to act. They are even taking to the streets to make this clear. Just a few weeks ago, the group I went to Downing Street with marched with members of the public from BBC Broadcasting House to Parliament to ‘Fight Fake (ie ultra-processed) Food’. Plans are afoot to build and grow this movement until politicians really feel the heat.
But when they do, politicians will still need to have figured out the answer to the concern above: how to make Britain’s food nourishing and sustainable without destroying food businesses and hampering economic growth? I told someone at The Grocer recently this is the question I want to answer and he said: “Dolly, if you can do that, then you’ve won the jackpot.”
I intend to.
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