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Listen to this siteTuesday 29 June 2004
Food and Beverage Conference, Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this, the second annual Food and Beverage conference. This occasion may be a relatively new addition to the food industry calendar, but it is clearly becoming one of the key events of the year.
It seems to me to be critically important that an industry that contributes 15% of GDP should have the opportunity to talk frankly and strategically about the issues that face you.
Thanks also to the organisers for devising a session that covers both of my main areas of interest. Normally I spend part of my week with one hat on as an advisor on social and corporate governance issues, and the rest of the week with my nutrition and food safety hat on at the FSA. So, in bringing both together I feel like a model of multi-tasking efficiency!
And on that note, I ought to move swiftly on to the business in hand.
This session is about corporate social responsibility and the national diet – a lengthy title for a whole range of issues many of you are involved in day in day out. I want to start by considering the question that some have been asking: 'we thought the Food Standards Agency was set up to sort out food safety - why on earth has it got involved in questions about the nutritional content of the national diet?'
Then – given that this is a food industry conference – I'll turn to the massive contribution that we believe you, the food industry, can make.
And I'll finish up by talking a bit about what the food industry can expect in terms of co-operation and support from the FSA. It is certainly our view that working closely with industry, working in partnership and sharing expertise, is the way forward.
From my point of view, Government, the Food Standards Agency, industry and consumers are entirely interdependent when we talk about the national diet.
As you all know, the FSA was born out of a crisis. A crisis in confidence in the safety of food in this country. Yet four years on we can see a very different picture
This is not the result of any particular major new regulations over the past few years. It is not the result of any exceptionally rigorous new enforcement regimes. It is a result of concerted efforts right across the food industry – helped by the new consensus that has developed, and continues to develop, on how it is possible for government, industry, and consumers to work in partnership, to work interdependently.
That consensus benefits all sides. For us, it has helped to establish our reputation: trust in the FSA has increased every year since we were set up in April 2000. Trust in a reliable watchdog has helped to restore consumer's confidence in the food that they buy. According to a recent EU survey, UK consumers rate their food safer than consumers in five other European countries – in every one of a dozen food categories, including beef. And obviously consumer confidence is good for business. That trust is a precious commodity that we squander at our peril.
Alongside that increasing trust in food safety, we are also seeing consumers becoming much more health conscious, and wanting to take personal responsibility for what they eat. But, so far, that increasing awareness is not always being translated into action. How we change that is the next big challenge – and the next opportunity for the FSA and the food industry to build on the constructive partnership that has made such a difference in terms of food safety.
Back to topWhich brings me directly to the question, 'what business is it of a Government agency if people chose to eat themselves to an early, super-sized grave?'
Let me start with a few basic connections.
First, the Food Standards Agency's remit is to protect consumers' health from food risks.
Traditionally, food risks have been seen in terms of foods safety. These are the issues – food poisoning, chemical contaminants, and particularly BSE, that brought the FSA into existence. So it shouldn't be any surprise that food safety has been – and will continue to be – a priority.
But increasingly, poor diet is being seen as presenting a major risk – certainly if you measure it in terms of deaths. Food poisoning causes about 500 deaths a year, food allergies around 20. Two people have died from new variant CJD so far this year, and about 140 in total over the past ten years.
Those are chilling statistics on food safety. But we do know that poor nutrition and poor diet contribute to well over 100,000 deaths every year from cardiovascular disease and cancer.
That's not to say, of course, that more traditionally-recognised food safety risks are any less important – or any less central to the work of the FSA. Just that we need to be giving a much higher priority to diet and nutrition. Our work in two very different areas – on salt and on Promotion of Food to Children – have both been part of this new priority – and it is likely to be spelled out in the Agency's next Strategic Plan. (Consultation on this has just closed [25 June] so I hope you've all had chance to comment.)
In the draft plan we do mention obesity – which is hardly surprising given the attention that has been rightly focused on the issue over the past year or so. And I think it has been extremely welcome, the way that the food industry has publicly acknowledged that food is implicated – that obesity has its origins in exercise, certainly, but also in patterns of consumption that are part and parcel of the lifestyle so many of us now lead.
Our draft Strategic Plan puts obesity in the wider context of eating for health. Improving the diet – encouraging more people to eat more healthily, to eat a more balanced diet, enabling well-being – is an important public health goal because it is one which will help tackle a range of diseases and chronic conditions, one of which is obesity.
I believe that we need many more positive messages. Instead of telling people what they can¿t do, we need to find ways of giving people messages about what they can do.
As many of you know, the FSA shares responsibility for nutrition with the UK health departments, but we have a clear lead in ensuring people have the information they need to make choices. Most of us here probably know that we should eat more fruit and veg, less fat, less sugar and less salt. And even we find it difficult. Of course we can check the nutrition panel on the label and choose if we want to eat something with that amount of fat or that level of salt. But not everyone has the same choices available to them – the same access to a range of foods, the income to buy and try different things, or the same motivations to care about good nutrition.
Which means, collectively, we have to start making healthier choices easier choices for many people. And the way I see that happening is in the way that is proving successful with food borne illness – working together, basing our decisions on the evidence, and being open and transparent about what we are doing and why.
Back to topWhich brings me to what the FSA would like the food industry to be doing. We believe that you are critical partners in making healthier eating an easier option. Our consultation on an Action Plan on Promotion of Food to Children is a handy reference point. We've received about 80 responses to the consultation, and the FSA board meets next week to make its final recommendations to government.
The sorts of questions the Board will be seeking answers for are:
What I think is encouraging is that, since we initiated this debate a year or so ago with the FSA systematic research review headed by Gerard Hastings, there has been some shift in the environment. We have heard companies committing not to advertise to children. We've heard about branding being dropped from school vending machines. And there was McDonald's announcement of a week or so ago to allocate a chunk of its TV advertising spend to promoting fruit and vegetables.
On the other hand, I was looking at the recent survey of new products in the Grocer, which makes fascinating reading. Something like two-thirds of its top rated new products last year looked to me like high-fat, high sugar foods – White Maltesers, double choc muffins, brownie desserts. You can't help but admire the inventiveness, and the innovation for which the industry is so well known. But just think if it was focused on healthier options – and I know there are developments in the pipeline – you could surely make lower fat, lower sugar products sell like the proverbial hot cakes?
I don't think I can avoid mentioning salt at this point – not least because I see it as a very good example of the progress that can be made when you have sound evidence and commitment on both sides. Too much salt is bad for you, and I think the dialogue that has been going on between the FSA and the food industry is starting to make inroads.
It has been a slow start, but momentum is building towards more and more reductions across the industry. Lets not jeopardise that, as there is still a long way to go. To borrow the analogy that the FSA Chairman, Sir John Krebs has used: if you think of the salt reduction target as a journey from London to Edinburgh, we've started the journey, but have only got about half way to the M25.
It is a collaborative process, and the Agency will continue to assist wherever possible, and will be looking to monitor and verify reductions so that the public can be confident in the changes.
The next obvious step is to look at reductions in fat and sugar. Now I understand that there are technical and taste reasons for fat and sugar reductions being less straightforward than salt. But I don't think it's beyond the capabilities of this industry, with its track record for development and innovation.
Back to topNor do I think it's impossible to come up with a simple scheme that makes it easier for consumers to identify healthier and less healthy options.
By simple, I mean simple to use rather than to set up – I recognise it could be very difficult to set up. I, of course, know that fruit contains sugar as well as vitamins and fibre. I know that cheese contains fat as well as calcium. But where I see signposts having a real benefit is with prepared foods – like pizzas and ready meals, and all the convenience foods – products that can and do vary hugely in fat, sugar and salt content. I think we, as consumers, need to know what it is that we are buying when we are looking for healthier options.
The bottom line from consumer research is that consumers want simple messages and signposts – in addition to the information they currently get. The challenge is to come up with a system that works – or at least works better than what we've got at the moment. And for now, a traffic light scheme, or some sort of 'high', 'medium', 'low' labelling appear to be the best options.
To paraphrase HL Mencken, 'no one in this world, as far as I know, is likely to lose money by making life easier for the consumer.'
Back to topComing to the third area for the food industry, surely it's clear now that there is a consensus that promotion and marketing of food does have an effect on what children eat. It may be difficult to quantify and of course it's not the only influence - but it does have some effect. Let's move on to deciding what the best things are to do about it.
Yes, the debate about what to do is still highly polarised. But this is an area where socially responsible companies can sidestep some of the arguments about the effectiveness – whether mandatory or self-regulatory – and get on and do something.
Without wishing to pre-empt what the FSA Board is going to recommend next Tuesday, this is where I see tremendous opportunities for the food industry to help contribute to real changes in consumer behaviour, and real changes in people's long-term health. Traditionally, we have long known that progressive and innovative industries are those that have been ahead of the curve, and I think there is real evidence here and now that many parts of the food chain are mobilising to do just that.
Surveys show that people are increasingly aware of healthy eating messages. Most of us know we should eat more fruit and veg and less fat and sugar.
But there is still a huge gap between awareness and action. And I think that you have the chance to capitalise on that by turning that awareness into demand for new and reformulated products. It seems to me to be an opportunity to go out and grow new markets ahead of the game.
This is an opportunity, if you like, to create a market for generations to come – by using marketing strategies that don't just raise awareness but actually change consumer behaviour.
Back to topEnough about what we'd like you to be doing. What can you, the food industry, expect from us?
Most important of all, you can expect us to carry on basing our decisions on the best available evidence and expert advice, and to carry on working in an open and transparent way. We do think we are a different sort of organisation. We make our policy decisions in public. We put into the public domain the reasons behind our decisions. And we are challenged regularly about the background to our decisions. But it's a formula that is working in terms of tackling the food poisoning statistics, and it's one that I think can work in terms of improving dietary health.
I mentioned the Action Plan on the Promotion of Foods to Children earlier, and that we expect to set ourselves targets next week. It may look like a daunting shopping list – to produce advice on health claims, front of pack signposts, nutritional criteria for reductions in fat, sugar and salt in children's foods. But we recognise that within it we have to set priorities and be pragmatic about how much can be changed, and how widely – without compromising our commitment to putting consumers first.
And we'll only be able to make progress if we can work closely with the food industry and underpin what we are doing with practical evidence that the changes will make a difference. That's why we commit something like a quarter of our total budget to research.
I see nutrition as an opportunity far more than as a threat to the food industry. An opportunity to win back ground that has been lost over the past few years by acting in a corporately responsible way and thereby pre-empting rules and regulation. It's very much our approach that it is best to work with industry. That way, changes come more quickly, more cost effectively, and, I would say, more appropriately because you know your consumers and you know what they want. The work on salt I mentioned earlier is a good example of this.
The health benefits of cutting down on salt – 35, 000 lives a year, by some estimates – should be a big enough case for action, a big enough argument for a responsible company to act. But I also recognise that there is a financial imperative – there's no point making lower salt products if consumers aren't going to buy them.
So, as part of our side of the bargain, we'll be launching a major public awareness campaign on salt in September – which will hopefully generate consumer demand for lower salt products. We raise awareness; you provide the means for consumers to change their behaviour.
What else are we doing to help raise awareness?
There's the FSA-sponsored Cooking Bus – which, since it was launched last November, has visited 21 schools, taught over 2,300 children about healthy eating and good hygiene and trained about 250 teachers – focusing on schools and play schemes in socially disadvantaged areas. It's a small start, but a contribution to recognising that children drive decision making in many families.
Then there's our website which is currently getting over 140,000 visits every week, and where we'll be launching a dedicated healthy eating website shortly. That's an indicator of our growing status as a trusted source of information.
And as said earlier, we'll shortly be launching a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of eating too much salt
We'll also be publishing more of our surveys comparing salt content in brands and own brands – with surveys on pizzas, baked beans and canned pastas in the pipeline.
I know these surveys are unpopular in some quarters – but it depends on how you choose to look at it. You can look at it as demonising high salt foods if you want to. But I think it's a way of making it easier for consumers to choose a healthier option. And easier for those of you who are reformulating to show what you are doing.
Back to topAnd that seems an appropriate point on which to sum up. We can't dictate, and lecture, and hector people into eating more healthily. After all – what people eat, and what they feed their children – are among the most private choices people make. But together we can create an environment in which it is easier for people to make the healthier choices for themselves.
The food culture in which we all live, in which we are bringing up children or grandchildren, has many different players in it, and it is a very different culture to the one that many of us were brought up in. I think we need to understand that culture and know what the influences are.
The past few weeks has seen a broad consensus coming together on some parts of this issue – several different bodies advocating very similar measures to those in the FSA's draft Action Plan: changes to public procurement, better labelling, curbs of some sort on advertising and promotion. Clearly diet and health as an issue is here to stay – it's not just passing storm to be weathered until the public moves on to the next food scare or fad diet.
Once consumer awareness of healthy eating turns into consumer pressure for healthier options the companies best placed to survive and prosper will be the ones that recognise this first and raise their game quickest. It is already well over a year now since Warburg's started warning of the financial risks to 'calorie sellers' of the obesity epidemic.
When asked in surveys, people overwhelming say that parents are most responsible for what their children eat. Who could disagree with that? But on the other hand, a majority are also in favour of some sort of controls on food marketing direct to children, on vending machines and so on.
You asked me to talk in this session about opportunities and threats. I think there are huge opportunities for you. I believe you can use your enormous capacity for innovation in ways that will directly influence people's health.
Keep making the foods that people want, but change the content to make them healthier. Change the labels to make it easier to find the healthier options. And change the way food is promoted and advertised. Make these changes and I see no reason why healthier options should by any less viable than the high fat, sugar and salt products that currently account for most of the advertising and promotion.
It is going to mean commitment from all sides. What I've talked about is a new relationship between the Food Standards Agency and the food industry. We are showing, with food safety, what can be done by working together. Now we need to bring that approach to improving the nation's diet. If you are committed to working with us, I can promise you proportionate, evidence-based, and transparent policy making in return. And together we can make a real difference
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