Food system leaders have warned momentum for change is real but remains uneven where conditions for delivery are not in place.
In its latest report, Building our Food Future: The Barometer, the Planeatary Alliance has revealed that in parts of the sector, decisions about range, promotions and sourcing are already being shaped by nutrition, cost and climate considerations, driven by supply volatility health pressures and policy.
The report found that where these signals are already integrated into commercial decisions, progress is tangible, but where they are not action remains slow despite net zero commitments.
The Barometer report identified 10 solutions to make healthy, sustainable diets the norm drawing on interviews with 10 leaders across the food system including from Lidl, Danone, WWF, Veg Power, Riverford Organic Farmers and Nomad Foods.
The solutions act across three areas: building the foundations, day-to-day execution, and enabling system change.
Each solution was also assessed across three momentum states, accelerating, emerging and fragile to provide a directional signal of where healthy sustainable diets are gaining traction, where progress is tentative and where enabling conditions have yet to be put in place.
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According to the report, momentum for food system change was found to be strongest where data, digital tools and commercial incentives reinforce change.
This was particularly the case in the use of nutrition and sustainability data, the redesign of food environments, and early portfolio shifts towards healthier, lower-impact baskets.
“When you believe it’s going to unlock commercial growth or mitigate a potential future risk, it’s a different conversation to simply ‘it’s the right thing to do’,” said Lauren Woodley, head of nutrition and sensory science at Nomad Foods.
Other areas of change are emerging through experimentation such as protein diversification, organisational capability building, shifting product mindsets and the use of online food environments.
By contrast, progress has remained “fragile” where deeper structural change is needed including in basket-first approaches, the transformation of agricultural support systems and the alignment of policy and regulation.
Amali Bunter, head of quality & sustainability at Lidl GB, said: “Greater coherence across health, sustainability, and farming policies is urgently needed to align incentives and accelerate systemic change across the UK food system.”
The report urged that while many organisations have the capacity to shape a future food system through action on healthy and sustainable diets, more work needed to be done to provide the conditions that allow what is working to spread.
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