Nutrition took centre stage at last week’s Nuffield Conference where speakers debated how the food and farming industries can meet changing food and dietary requirements and tackle pressing public health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Susan Jebb, an Oxford University professor of diet and population health, outlined the scale of the problem: one in two adults in the UK have high cholesterol; one in three have high blood pressure; one in four are clinically obese; and one in 16 have diabetes. This presents a challenge to the agricultural sector, speakers said, with opportunities to improve the nutritional benefits of fresh produce through plant breeding, soil protection and improved farm management.
“We really are not moving very far in terms of trying to drive the nutritional qualities [of our produce],” said Leaf CEO Caroline Drummond, “but there is such an opportunity, particularly when you look at the range of biodiversity that we really haven’t touched or exploited.”
Several speakers, including Jebb and rural policy specialist Michael Winter, called for government departments to stop working in silos when tackling obesity and other public health issues. And as the market for healthy foods grows, Winter said it was important that the farming industry “works much more closely with the health sector” to promote healthy products, such as fruit and vegetables, and devise policies that encourage growers to focus more on the nutritional value of their produce.
Up to now Winter said there has been a lack of co-operation between core government bodies in this area of policy, namely Defra, Public Health England (PHE) and the Food Safety Authority (FSA), with WWF-UK’s Duncan Williamson bemoaning the fact that these different departments often pursue contradictory policies.
During the panel debate William Armitage, a Nuffield scholar in the audience, called for tighter regulations on soil protection – a measure he felt was important for conserving agricultural land and improving human health by boosting minerals levels in Britain’s soil. However, NFU vice president Guy Smith stood out against more stringent soil health regulations when Britain departs from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. He said it would only lead to more imports from countries with lower environmental standards, such as Brazil.
On the retail side of things, AHDB analyst Steven Evans presented the body’s new report on ‘understanding health through the eyes of the consumer’. British households are taking a range of steps to live more healthily, and according to research by the Foresight Factory, consumers’ top response has been to prepare meals from scratch, with around 60 per cent of households reporting they do this. Steps to eat low-calorie food, organic food, and food claiming to have specific health benefits also present significant opportunities for the fresh produce sector, the research suggests.
Despite the complications involved in making health claims on a product’s packaging, effective communication in this area is key, said Evans, with consumers spending five per cent more when health was the reason for their choice of product. “It’s vital that products shout hard about the health credentials they offer,” Evans said, “regardless of whether they are new innovations or variations on traditional products.”
A striking example of the importance of product information to sales is organics. In a talk on people’s multi-sensory perception of flavour, Oxford professor Charles Spence presented research showing that if you tell people a product is organic, it will taste better to them. And yet in a blind taste test they will not be able to pick it out.
This is all important food for thought as Britain stumbles into the Brexit negotiations and, for the first time in 40 years, begins to shape agricultural policy of its own.
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