Former health minister attacks food & drink industry over ‘tobacco-style’ tactics

Former health minister James Bethell has launched a savage attack on the food and drink industry at today’s The Grocer Health Summit.

The former Tory under-secretary of state, speaking at the sellout event in Westminster this morning, accused supermarkets and food manufacturers of using the same “deny, distract, and delay” tactics used by the tobacco industry before governments finally cracked down on it with a series of sweeping marketing bans.

But Bethell said a much more recent parallel was the government’s introduction of regulation to protect children from the harm caused by social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, warning that more of the same was heading the food industry’s way.

“There is a very strong chance going into the next election that the kind of public anger that was directed at Facebook and Google over things like pornography seen by children could be directed at food companies over things like targeting kids with additive foods.” he told the conference.

Bethell, who was closely involved in the sector’s response to the Covid pandemic, said he had since given up speaking to the food industry because of its failure to address the health crisis.

He added that whilst it had stepped up to protect the nation during pandemic, it was culpable for leaving the UK facing a crippling bill for the NHS due to huge levels of childhood and adult obesity caused by HFSS and ultra-processed diets.

And he accused supermarkets of using “window dressing” around promotions of food such as fresh fruit and veg as a smokescreen to cover up the mass sale of unhealthy food to kids.

Bethell claimed food industry trade bodies had conducted an “incredibly well-organised, energetic, well-funded lobbying campaign to make sure there isn’t a level playing field, and that the food environment prefers those that are stacking the shelves with high-margin, highly addictive foods and squeezes out smaller retailers and producers”.

“If you and I set up a company tomorrow to try to sell healthy products, I think we would be squished out of the system.”

Asked what the future held for food companies and consumers, Bethell said the “health dereliction” meant the outlook for costs to the NHS caused by the obesity crisis were “incredibly grim” and said it was time the industry “woke up and smelt the coffee”.

However, as well as the threat of regulation, Bethell also said the rise of weight-loss drugs would threaten the future of companies as a direct result of the industry’s failure to take the obesity crisis seriously enough.

He said consumers had become “victims of the system, so much so that they literally have to take a drug in order to change the decision-making properties of their brain”.

Reacting to the speech, a spokeswoman for the Food & Drink Federation said: “We all need food to live, and the UK’s food manufacturers play a central role in ensuring people have a range of products to choose from every day. We make everything from foods like frozen peas and wholemeal bread to treats like puddings and confectionery, all of which can form part of a healthy and balanced diet.

“Food manufacturers have demonstrated their commitment to supporting healthier diets by investing hundreds of millions of pounds in healthier products in line with government guidelines and the latest scientific evidence over many years. Just in the last five years, our members have cut salt, sugar and calories in their products by a fifth, and industry has been forthcoming in complying with strict regulations restricting the advertising of less healthy food to children.

“As the people who make the nation’s food, we believe that collaboration between government and industry, and across the whole food system, is vital if we are to ensure that food and drink policies and regulations work in the real world. That’s why five of our members have committed to voluntarily reporting on healthy food sales from next year, so we can start to build a consistent dataset to see what works and help inform future policy.”

The Grocer Health Summit took place on 15 September 2026. Register your interest f or the 2027 event here.