The first major review of the food system recommended a levy of £3 per kilo for sugar and £6 per kilo for salt sold wholesale for use in processed foods which will aim to encourage manufacturers to reduce their use in products as part of efforts to curb obesity, strokes and heart disease.
The National Food Strategy report, which was commissioned by the UK government in 2019, said the UK population’s ‘malfunctioning’ appetites and poor diets, which is fuelled by consumer and manufacturers’ reliance on processed food, contributes to 64,000 deaths each year and costs the economy an estimated £74bn.
The report also said fruit and vegetable consumption must rise by 50% in the next 10 years, while consumption of food high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar must fall by 25%. Meat consumption must also fall by 30% by 2032 if the UK is going to combat the interlinked climate, nature, and health crises.
The report offers the government 14 recommendations to help meet their targets on climate and health. The report estimates that its recommendations will cost around £1.4bn a year and bring in £2.9 to £3.4bn a year in direct revenue to the Treasury, with a long-term economic benefit of up to £126bn.
Author of the report, founder of Leon restaurants, Henry Dimbleby said: ‘The food system we have now has evolved over many years. It won’t be easy to reshape it. But time is not on our side. The effects of climate change are already becoming apparent around the world. Diet-related disease is putting an intolerable strain on our nation’s health and finances, and covid-19 has only increased the pressure. For our own health, and that of our planet, we must act now.’
The report also recommends taking 5-8% of today’s farmland out of production to meet net-zero targets, as the meat and dairy industry will soon surpass the oil industry as the world’s biggest polluter according to a report by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in 2018.
This will also help the government’s target of protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030 and the report says 20% of farmland produces just 3% of calories.
It also calls for an initiative to support diet in deprived communities, including trialling a scheme to let GPs prescribe fruit and vegetables to patients who are food insecure or suffering from the effects of poor diet.
The report also suggests introducing an ‘eat and learn’ initiative for schools which will aim to help declining culinary skills across every social class and teach young people about food and nutrition.
The government has already acted on four of the seven recommendations in Part One of the National Food Strategy which was published in July 2020.
The government has extended the Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) to all areas in England for the duration of 2021, increased the value of Healthy Start vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25 per week, and has agreed to continue collecting, assessing, and monitoring data on the number of people suffering from food insecurity.
The government has also adopted the recommendation to commission an independent report on proposed trade agreements which will assess the impact on economic productivity, food safety and public health, the environment and climate change, society and labour, human rights and animal welfare.
Dimbleby concluded: ‘Some of our recommendations will be met with protests from those industries whose business models are shaped to fit the current food system. Change is never easy. But we cannot build a sustainable, healthy, and fair food system by doing business as usual.’
Boris Johnson has announced after his ‘levelling up’ speech on Thursday that he rejects junk food tax recommendation stating: ‘I am not, I must say, attracted to the idea of extra taxes on our working people, let me just signal that, but I will study his report with interest.’
