News

Food companies urged to bring ‘joy’ and urgency to healthy food mission

For too long, businesses have treated health and sustainability as separate agendas – but there is growing evidence to show diets that benefit human health can also enhance that of the planet, say experts.

Ali Morpeth, co-founder of the Planeatry Alliance and a registered nutritionist, was one of several global food executives to put forward this argument at the Sustainable Food Conference 2025, held in London in January.

The heavy emphasis on health at a conference about sustainability is significant. Common solutions to the climate and obesity crises are increasingly sought – but in the past, health initiatives have often ignored environmental impacts while sustainability strategies have overlooked human wellbeing, speakers agreed.

Morpeth said policies were needed to accelerate the drive to more sustainable choices, but highlighted examples of where food companies have started to encourage greater diversity in the food being purchased.

“People’s diets are ‘plates’,” she explained, “they’re not at the ingredient level.” This is about shifting consumers towards a “slightly different dietary pathway”, she argued.

Signs of revival in plant-based alternatives

Lidl GB’s commitment last year that plant-based proteins would make up 25% of its protein sales by 2030 is one example. In the Netherlands, the discounter has also been introducing blended products, with both beef and pea protein, to help reduce meat consumption.

David Moore, group head of ESG at The Compleat Food Group, highlighted signs of revival in the plant-based alternatives category after a difficult period impacted by both the cost-of-living crisis and stories about the processed nature (and long ingredients lists) on some of the products. In the 12 weeks preceding the conference, vegan products were in growth for the first time in 18 months, Moore said.

“We all read the facts,” said James Mayer, president at Danone UK&I. “We need a new mission [...] healthier food at scale.”

He insisted that it was not the level of processing that was important, but the nutritional composition of food and drink. “Every time consumers go to the shelf, they make a vote for the kind of system they want,” he said.

Plant proteins need a policy push

UK supermarket Tesco has been promoting beans as a source of protein. The company’s commercial officer, Ashwin Prasad, used his place on a “sustainable nutrition” panel to provide an update on the chain’s voluntary target for 65% of shopping baskets (total sales) to come from “healthy” foods, as defined by the government’s nutrient profiling model, by the end of this year.

In 2021, when the supermarket announced the target, share of healthy food was “going the wrong way”, Prasad admitted, but Tesco looks to be on track to hit the goal this year.

“Healthy food must be affordable,” he added.

That is not the reality, however. Research by the Food Foundation , released during the conference, showed that on average, healthier foods as defined by the government’s nutrient profiling model are more than twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods, with healthier foods increasing in price at twice the rate in the past two years.

Speaking at the conference, the foundation’s executive director, Anna Taylor, encouraged food businesses to tell people a “compelling story of what we’d like to eat... of what good food looks like”. The current narrative can be “joyless”, she said, not least when it comes to the topic of plant-based foods.

The need for more regulatory intervention also came up. The UK government is drawing up a new national food strategy, a farming roadmap, and has already started consulting on a new land use framework.

Minister for food security Daniel Zeichner told the conference that the government has to make “difficult decisions”. Restricting advertising for unhealthy foods is one of those.

“There is a lot of policy emphasis on people’s choices, [but] the reality is that we are facing into a food environment that doesn’t drive healthy choices,” said Elaine Hindal, chief executive at the British Nutrition Foundation.

Introducing progressive policies to shift diets to healthy, sustainable, plant-forward ones is another. In February, the government’s advisers at the Climate Change Committee called for reductions in meat and dairy consumption in order for the UK to keep within its “carbon budget” for 2038-2042.

Nestlé ‘very close’ to its regenerative ingredients targets

Dairy companies including Arla Foods, First Milk, Nestlé, and Yeo Valley made their case at the conference, detailing how they are limiting chemical inputs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through regenerative farming approaches.

Nestlé, which buys 1% of every agricultural output produced globally, is “very close” to hitting a target to source 20% of its key ingredients from regenerative farming methods by 2025, said Emma Keller, its head of sustainability UK&I.

Food and beverage brands reliant on livestock products are being targeted by campaign groups and increasingly accused of greenwashing in relation to their regenerative farming and emission reduction claims.

Regenerative farming: Who foots the bill?

Another subject of heated debate, at the conference and more widely, is the question of who will foot the bill for the transition to regenerative farming.

Some speakers argued that consumers should be prepared to pay a premium in order to drive companies to convert more of the supply chains, but many noted that farmer engagement would be low unless manufacturers and retailers subsidise the changes needed on farms.

Rowan Adams, chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer at Tate & Lyle, said the cost of applying regenerative practices across Europe could be “north of €30 billion a year” but added: “That shouldn’t scare us.”

Some speakers argued that discussions on sustainable food systems must include more ingredients companies, who were noticeable by their absence at the conference.

Tech companies were certainly out in force, from those calculating the carbon benefits from new approaches to agricultural production or tracking supply chain data, to those involved in NPD and crop breeding.

British Sugar MD Keith Packer highlighted how important the Precision Breeding Act will be for the future of “sustainable crops”, linking both the UK’s new industrial and food strategies.

Investing in food technology, from crop varieties to animal alternatives, remains risky, said some speakers. Sarah O’Neill, global strategy director at cheese manufacturer Carbery Group, noted the risks of investment in downstream processing are currently “quite large” and the “biggest challenge” remains scaling up alternative protein products.