19 September 2025
Briefing
DIGEST: Key reports and news on food systems and climate
Reports and Research
🧺📉First insights into HFSS legislation show positive results so far
The first study to investigate shoppers’ behaviours and perceptions of the UK’s new HFSS legislation has been published. It found that around 60% of shoppers didn’t realise the legislation had come in, suggesting the policy worked quietly in the background, reshaping the food environment without consumer resistance. Also that 90% of shoppers said making healthier food more affordable is as or more important than restricting unhealthy products. In another study, researchers at the University of Leeds analysed found that daily purchases of affected items fell by around two million! Before the rules came in, 20 out of every 100 items sold were in-scope HFSS products. Following legislation this number dropped to 19.The study analysed transactions from Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Restrictions on the placement of HFSS products in supermarkets were introduced in England in October 2022.
You can read an excellent summary of all this from our Policy Champion, Ali Morpeth.
🍔📺Five minutes of junk food targeting makes kids eat 130kcals more a day
A randomised crossover trial led by Professor Emma Boyland from the University of Liverpool has found that 7–15 year-olds exposed to just 5 minutes of adverts for foods high in saturated fats, sugar, and/or salt (HFSS) consumed on average 130 kcals more per day, equivalent to the calories in two slices of bread. A group of 240 participants were exposed to 5-minutes of HFSS food and then non-food advertisements that were either brand-only or product-based through one of four different media (audio-visual e.g., TV), visual (social media posts), audio (podcasts), static (paper billboards). Children consumed more snacks, more lunch, and more food overall (snack and lunch combined +131 kcals) than after exposure to non-food ads. Neither advert content (brand-only or product) nor type of media moderated children’s intake. Press release on the study
🗒️🤔Health inequalities dashboard shows scale of disparity across UK
The Food Foundation has created a Health and Diet Inequalities Dashboard, which it says ‘makes it clear that the most deprived areas of the country also have the highest rates of disease related to poor diet’. Children born in these constituencies are much more likely to develop childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, dental decay and live shorter lives, with the North of England worst affected. Health and Diet Inequalities Dashboard | Food Foundation
🏫🚸Expanded free school meals worth £600m – an opportunity for UK food production?
From September 2026, all children in households in England receiving Universal Credit will be entitled to free school meals. According to a report from Sustain, this represents an opportunity worth over £600 million annually in food procurement, which could bolster domestic production and improve the sustainability of public sector food. If this is to happen, the report says, it depends on:
- Fair and transparent funding that reflects the true cost of delivering high-quality school meals
- Updated public procurement that supports SMEs and local and regional supply networks
- Infrastructure and workforce investment, particularly in regional prep hubs and school kitchens
- Transparent data and monitoring
🚜👩🏼🌾Using a common framework to measure sustainability helps farmers improve
The Sustainable Food Trust, alongside partners Soil Association Exchange, LEAF, the Andersons Centre (with ABP), and BASIS Registration took part in the Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) Test & Trial programme. Working with 26 farms across England, the trial explored the benefits of using a common framework to measure sustainability holistically. It found that the Global Farm Metric helped farmers better understand their performance across economic, environmental and social indicators, while highlighting areas for improvement and action. The short summary report outlines key learnings, including the importance of advisory support, reducing the burden of data collection and aligning public policy with practical farm-level realities. It also shares five recommendations for Defra:
- Commit to the implementation of a standardised framework for understanding, measuring and monitoring farm sustainability holistically
- Invest in farm-level data to enable evidence-based agriculture
- Address the burden of data collection
- Ensure fair rewards for farmers
- Strengthen and provide advisory support
⛔🙅🏼Report examines barriers to engaging farmers in sustainability
And another one on the GFM (see above)… This report shares key findings from research with farm advisors using the Global Farm Metric tool in Wales, focusing on the barriers to engaging farmers in sustainability and how these might be overcome. It also examines how on-farm sustainability assessments could help address these barriers and support positive change. It finds that engagement on sustainability was affected by factors including time, cost, infrastructure, knowledge gaps, cognitive overload, mindset concerns, and communication issues. These barriers are similar to those affecting the actual implementation of change, showing that engagement itself carries costs and complexities that need to be tackled. Although only just published, the report summarises a 2022 project.
News
🐄🛍️UK-grown food production should have targets like net zero does, says M&S
M&S is calling on the government to set legally binding targets to increase the proportion of British-grown food eaten in the UK. The retailer warns that 6000 farmers have left the business, and says the government should set home-grown food targets in much the same way that we have net zero targets. Part of this would be ensuring that UK food standards have protection in international trade deals.
✋🏼👍🏼Government ban on unhealthy food advertising has some interesting exemptions
The government has moved back the ban on unhealthy food advertising to 5 January 2026. It also proposed some exemptions to the ban, as highlighted on LinkedIn by Fran Bernhardt from Sustain. These include:
- Allowing brand-only advertising (eg, for McDonalds or Cadbury)
- Allowing advertising for product ranges (eg, Cadbury’s Buttons, because they are available in different flavours)
- Allowing advertising with non-specific products (eg, unspecified takeaway food in a food delivery service advert).
🥓👨🏼💼Concerns over corporate involvement in school breakfast clubs
Concerns have been raised about government plans to invite businesses to sponsor its flagship free breakfast club scheme, giving them “promotional rights” in return. The free breakfast clubs are being piloted in 750 primary schools across England, but nearly 80 “early adopters” dropped out before the start of the trial due to lack of funding. Unions have warned a sponsor “should not be relied upon to make the government’s programme work”, and a food campaign group said free breakfast “should be provided in a way that protects children from commercial marketing and promotion”. Read more
🤑👂🏼Lobbying by food industry is still watering down government action, say think tanks
Lobbying by the food industry has led government to drop plans to curb unhealthy food, say Sarah Woolnough and Jennifer Dixon, the chief executives of the King’s Fund and Health Foundation thinktanks. They say vested interests wield too much influence and water down planned policies: “There is a long history of lobbying from the food, alcohol and tobacco industries weakening and delaying measures that would improve people’s health.” Read more in The Guardian, and read reaction from The FFCC’s Sue Pritchard.
