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Listen to this siteTuesday 23 November 2004
UK Obesity: Implications for the food and drink industry conference, BSG Conference Centre, London.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Whether it was more by luck than judgement, the organisers of this conference have certainly managed to pick an auspicious date for this event, hard on the heels of the launch of the White Paper on public health last week.
With the Government's proposals now finalised and out in the open, we can start to use the framework set out in the White Paper to shape how those of us involved in food and public protection can work together. I'll say straight away that the three key principles of the White Paper are music to my ears, these being:
From our viewpoint at the Food Standards Agency, we are already well grounded in these principles, having set out from the start to earn public trust for our advice and information about food. And we've done that, wherever we can, by working in partnership with the food industry, as well as with consumers.
From the work we have done together to improve public confidence in food safety since the Agency was set up in April 2000, many of you, I hope, will be familiar with our approach:
I hope you'll agree that public confidence has improved as a result. Our surveys tell us people are less concerned about food safety generally - and BSE in particular - than they were a few years ago. On the other hand, they are increasingly concerned about diet and nutrition issues.
This shift is reflected in the Agency's new Strategic Plan for the next five years, which will be published next month. I'd like to think that none of that comes as a surprise, given how widely we have consulted in drawing up the plan. I'm told there were over 50 food companies and industry representatives (the largest group represented) among the 200 written responses to our consultation on the plan.
The plan sets out our aims to:
That last option, making healthier eating an easier option, is the one that I am going to focus on this morning, for obvious reasons.
While food safety has, understandably, been a primary focus of the Agency in its first few years, the Food Standards Act that established the Agency gave us responsibilities for diet and nutrition as well -and this area is becoming increasingly prominent for the Agency.
We have, obviously, been working closely with the Department of Health as we'e developed our thinking on diet and health for the new FSA strategic plan, and, as you'llsee, our strategy dovetails with a number of the key priorities in the White Paper.
Most of those Agency priorities in the White Paper are linked with tackling obesity, but I want to make the point that healthy eating is about more than just obesity -just as obesity is about more than what you eat.
That is not meant in any way to down play the importance of the obesity issue. We have to do something about it, and the initiatives coming out of the food industry over the past few months are very welcome and encouraging. But by encouraging more people to eat more healthily; to eat a more balanced diet; and by encouraging greater interest in well-being we can help tackle a whole range of diseases and chronic conditions, one of which is obesity.
There is a trend in the right direction already. But whose responsibility is it to push on for an environment that encourages healthier eating and well-being?
We all have responsibilities, I' argue, though, my brief today is specifically to talk about the responsibilities of those who grow, make, sell and promote food.
Probably more for my benefit than yours, I'e broken this down into an ABC -but there is obviously going to be a lot of overlapping between the categories I'v contrived for the occasion.
C is for customers (or consumers)
To take things in the traditional reverse order, I'l start with C, which in this case is for customers, or consumers.
This is where food is pretty much universal -hen it comes to food, whether we grow it, make it, sell it or eat it, we are all consumers.
We are all consumers, but we are not all the same -and the food industry is probably better than any other at exploiting that, segmenting the market, developing products to promote to particular groups value ranges for families, premium ready meals for Bridget Jones' singletons, cartoon-branded kids products and so on.
Parts of the industry have been responding to the increasing demand for healthy eating for some time. But healthy eating is more than just a marketing opportunity. It is increasingly being recognised as an important aspect of corporate social responsibility - an extra reason, apart from customer demand, to invest in healthy eating.
But it has to grow along the right lines, with products that are healthier all-round, and which are labelled and promoted clearly. That' not always the case at the moment, and I'm thinking here about the Slim Truth report that Sue Davies mentioned yesterday, where Which? researchers trawled the supermarket shelves and came up with healthy branded muesli with three times the sugar of the regular version, and healthy branded biscuits with twice the salt.
Consumers are not stupid, and they are sceptical enough already about commercial interests without further encouragement. To give a 'for instance,'there was the Mori poll in the Guardian this month that claimed more than half of the population don' trust the motives of 'big business.'
On the other hand, consumers believe that all sectors of the food industry - farmers, suppliers, retailers and food service - should take responsibility for their actions. According to an Institute of Grocery Distribution special feature on corporate social responsibility:
85% of consumers believe that the food industry has a responsibility to respond to the social, environmental and ethical consequences of its actions.
Incidentally, developing healthy eating ranges was rated the second most desirable individual component of a CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] strategy for the food industry (after supporting local food producers).
Another observation from the IGD report worth raising was that consumers have higher expectations of the food industry and its social responsibilities than other industries. Yet the highest ranked food business in the FTSE 100, based on community involvement and good causes, comes in at number 17 - below banks, telecoms, pharmaceuticals and media companies.
I personally think there is huge scope here for the food industry to tap into, and amplify, what is a growing consumer interest in healthy eating and well-being. And there is no more innovative and fast moving industry capable of doing that.
The Food and Drink Federations Food and Health Manifesto published a few weeks ago is a very positive commitment to that and one that shares many of the objectives in the White Paper and the Agency's Action Plan on Food Promotion.
It's certainly the Agency's view that we can only make progress on healthy eating if the food industry itself wants the changes and recognises the benefits. If that�s the case, then we can help by providing a supporting framework of research, advice, and guidelines.
I'll say more about that in a few minutes, but it's time I moved on to B.
B is for Boardroom (or bottom line)
B is for Boardroom - or bottom line, if you take the view that the primary responsibility of a business is to its shareholders.
As I mentioned earlier, all these responsibilities are connected, and I don't see why there should be any incompatibility between profitability and a corporate responsibility to encourage healthy eating - if anything, these should go hand in hand in the current climate with public health so high on the agenda.
What with Atkins, Supersize Me, Celebrity Fit Club, the BBC's Fat Nation Big Challenge, and now the long awaited White Paper and the attendant publicity last week, there can't have been a better opportunity than now to capitalise on the high profile of healthy eating. This is not a passing fad that's about to go away.
What has been encouraging - since the FSA initiated the debate around the influence of food promotion on children a little over a year ago - has been the shift we've already seen in the promotional environment with talk of scrapping supersizes and commitments to cut branding on school vending machines.
And it's not just negatives. There are positive messages too, like McDonalds promising a chunk of its advertising budget to promoting fruit and vegetables; Walkers crisps with its Walkometers; salads appearing in Kentucky Fried Chicken adverts.
Obesity is mainly responsible for providing the momentum, but there is the start of a cultural shift more generally towards healthier eating. What the surveys show is that people know they should be eating less fat, salt and sugar, and more fruit and vegetables and more fibre. But there is a huge gap between that awareness and action. And there has to be money to be made by whoever can fill that gap.
Companies like Innocent and Organics are proving incredibly successful by tapping into the demand for products that are perceived to be healthier, more wholesome, or more ethically sourced and manufactured. Mintel says the market for organics and ethical foods is growing. And those reports from Warburg and JP Morgan have warned for some time about the potential financial dangers for companies associated with unhealthy foods.
In light of which, it seems a bit counter-intuitive that something like two-thirds of the top-rated new product launches for last year were for high-fat, high-sugar cakes, puddings and confectionery. Still, if the invention and innovation that can come up with thousands of new food products a year and could be focused on healthier options - and I know that there are developments in the pipeline - then there is undoubtedly a market out there.
I mentioned earlier the importance of product formulation as a whole, not just replacing fat with sugar or salt. And I know from the work that's going on in our nutrition division, and the discussions they are having with industry, this is not a simple and straightforward task.
But having said that, we will be doing as much as we possibly can to support your efforts in this. And I am confident that together we can make real progress.
A is for Agency
Which brings me to the A of my ABC of responsibilities; and A is for Agency (as in the Food Standards Agency).
I hope now, with the publication of the White Paper, that we can leave behind the diversionary debates about a nanny state, and where the boundary falls between personal responsibility and state intervention. The debate has moved on.
The Department of Health has run a huge consultation process, and the consensus is for creating the environment in which it is easier to chose to eat more healthily. Let's aim to make healthy eating the norm, not a niche market. And we are a very long way away from that in some places - such as for vulnerable groups whose choices are more limited, or whose social circumstances mean that motivation to make healthier choices is lower. If you're in a damp flat, in a low paid job, working long hours, looking after several children single handed, it's hardly surprising if 'eat something' is an easier message than 'grab five.'
The key responsibilities for the Food Standards Agency, working with the food industry, have been clearly set out in the White Paper:
All of which, I am pleased to say, we are some way down the road with as they are part of the Action Plan on Food Promotion and Children's Diets that was agreed by the FSA Board in July [2004].
Curbs on advertising and promotion to children were also flagged up last week, and the Agency also has recommendations in its Action Plan on Food Promotions and Children's Diets that fit with the White Paper objectives. We've got a lot of work in progress at the moment on food in schools in particular - on healthy vending, improving nutritional content of school meals and improving promotion of healthier options. So I think it's important here not to get caught up in focusing on TV advertising at the expense of all the other aspects of food promotion and marketing.
Later this week we will be publishing the results of our consumer testing of five different options for front-of-pack signposting schemes. I know a lot of the media coverage last week talked about the Government bringing in, specifically, a traffic light scheme, but that was jumping the gun a bit.
For one, we've been trying out five different schemes, three of which were variations of what could be called traffic lights. And for two, we don't have the evidence yet to say which of these schemes will work best.
As an Agency that puts consumers' interests first, we are not going to sign up to anything until we know we've got something that works, and works for consumers above all.
Our next step will be to go forward with more extensive development and trials of whichever of the five models looks most promising - and we'll be aiming to work with the food industry to refine the best scheme.
I know that several retailers have versions that are already under starter's orders, as it were. But I hope we can eventually pool experiences and arrive at a common standard, rather than have a proliferation of schemes with the potential to be confusing.
Reformulation is also a work in progress, though I'm very aware that reducing fat and sugar poses different and more complex problems to reducing salt content. The experts are in manufacturing and selling food; we can only offer advice and support based on the evidence of what consumers want, and communicate progress back to support what you in thefood industry are doing.
Still, I think the partnership approach we've taken so far with salt, which is proving successful, is a good example.
People seem to either love or hate Sid the Slug - not necessarily depending on your views on salt - but the informal feedback about the campaign we have been getting so far does seem to be overwhelmingly positive. Keep it simple and funny is our experience with public health messages - hence the 'too much salt is bad for your heart' line - and the six-foot slug.
Conclusion
What has characterised the salt reduction campaign so far for me has been the broad support there has been from those with an interest in what we have been doing.
For instance, at the launch of the Sid campaign in September [2004], we had consumer organisations, health charities and the food industry along to lend support. We had endorsement from the British Heart Foundation and the Stroke Association. Melanie Johnson, the Public Health Minister came along to back the campaign, and Barbara Gill from the National Federation of Women's Institutes was urging companies to act.
And, what was particularly pleasing was to have positive messages coming from the food industry. Gavin Neath of Unilever and the Food and Drink Federation, came along and spoke on behalf of the industry, and endorsed the campaign for setting the example of how the food industry and Government can work constructively together.
What we have to do now is make sure we can transfer that constructive partnership to the other areas where we need to work together, particularly those that have been set out in our new Strategic Plan and which form part of the White Paper.
I don't think anybody thinks signposting is going to be simple to sort out. Or that reformulation is easy. But what we want is to get it right, not get it wrong quickly. We have set some deadlines - otherwise things tend not to happen. But the aim is to find something that works best - and to do that means we have to work on this together. I think it's inevitable that we won't agree on everything, and you'll know that as an organisation we're not shy about being controversial and challenging from time to time.
We were set up to put the consumer first, but as I see it, what is in the best interests of the consumer is also best for business, in most cases. Which brings me back neatly to where I started.
We are in a three-way relationship - between Government (represented by the FSA), industry and consumers. It is a powerful combination that has helped to restore a degree of consumer trust and confidence in the food supply. It can also make a real difference to people's health and well-being.
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