IFHD Parliamentary Tasting Event Speech

Opening the event, Karen Betts, Chief Executive, The Food and Drink Federation, said:

Thank you Mike, for your kind introduction and for hosting us today.  We really appreciate your support.

And a big welcome everyone from FDF.  It’s great to see so many of you here – this is always a popular event, which we have to hold in this rather small room because of Parliamentary rules about catering, which has the effect of making it seem even more popular!

But why are we here? Well, to show you in a tangible, concrete way, how committed food and drink companies are to helping people follow healthier diets.

Let me be very clear.  Food and drink manufacturers know that public health in the UK isn’t where it needs to be.

We know that it’s unsustainable for two thirds of adults to be overweight or obese, posing risks to their long-term health and to the NHS.

We know too that we must be part of the solution.  And we want to be – we live as part of our communities, and we owe it to our customers and to society more broadly. 

Today’s event is about showing you what we’re doing to make our products healthier, and to increase the range of healthy options for shoppers.  We know that this is one of the most impactful ways our industry can contribute to helping everyone eat less fat, salt and sugar and more fruit, vegetables and fibre; as well as smaller portions.  You can get a sense of the scale and breadth of this work today in the example products that companies have brought for you to taste, as well as on our Action on Fibre and 5-a-day table.

Now, we’re not complacent. We know there’ll always be more progress to make in this space.  But equally, we’re proud of what we’re achieving.

Overall, since 2015 (and we’ve chosen that as a baseline because it’s the government baseline for sugar reduction targets), FDF member products contribute a third less salt and a quarter less sugar and calories to the grocery market than they did. 

In addition, FDF’s Action on Fibre initiative – which is growing fast – has seen nearly 200 million additional servings of fibre provided to shoppers in 2023 alone.  Helping to address the fact that we all need to eat about 40% more fibre every day than we currently do.

We’re proud of our progress because it represents significant successes.  Changing the recipes of products at scale isn’t as easy as it may sound.  Generally, if you take an ingredient out of something, you have to replace it with something else.  You have to manage how that change impacts how the product tastes, its shelf life, how it’s packaged and what it costs.  Very often too, factories have to adapt or replace machinery, because a reformulated product can’t be made on existing equipment, for example if its consistency changes.  All of this takes time.  And much scientific and technical expertise. And hundreds of millions of pounds of investment. But the industry is doing it, and willingly.  We know it’s key to our present and to our future.

There are two other thoughts I want to leave you with.  One is about what would help our work to make food and drink healthier continue at pace.  The second is to challenge some myths you may have encountered.

On the first, and as Jacinta will tell you, the science behind reformulation is complex and that can make it expensive and risky commercially.  So we’re asking government to consider how to help companies commit to continued investment – for example, by allowing R&D tax credits to be used when companies invest in innovating for health.  Or by actively supporting smaller companies – for example, like the Scottish Government has done through its Reformulation for Health Programme, which has seen millions of calories and tonnes of salt removed from products made in Scotland.  We believe we’d drive further progress in change if this sort of support was funded right across the UK. Joanne is here today to tell everyone more about this particular Scottish success story, so please do make time to talk to her.  And for the MPs here today, please do support us in these requests.

And on busting a couple of myths.  The first is on UPF – or ultra processed foods.  Without getting too deeply into the debate now, it’s true to say that changing food and drink to make it healthier can often involve processing and additives.  Without this, it wouldn’t be possible, for example, to lower the fat of mayonnaise or yoghurt, or to add essential micronutrients that we’d all otherwise lack to bread.  So we’re very keen that the debate around processing is rooted in science.  If clear scientific evidence emerges that aspects of processing need to change, then the industry will act fast.  But until then, it seems to us that processing helps to make positive, healthier choices widely available, and we’ll all lose if the UPF debate forces food companies to act prematurely and ahead of the evidence.   

The second is on transparency.  The food and drink industry has worked with the Department of Health and DEFRA under the last government on how we could report data through the proposed Food Data Transparency Partnership. We think this work should continue, because we recognise that it’s important in gaining a better, overall understanding of the food and drink that people in the UK are consuming, and in ensuring transparency.  We believe it could form part of any new government food strategy, and we look forward to engaging on this further.

And to close.  Thank you very much for coming. Please do sample the food and drink here and talk to our companies and the FDF team.  And do please keep in touch, with your questions, feedback and, I hope, your collaboration on this critical topic.