2 October 2025

🌍🧑🏼‍⚕️Eat Lancet V2 comes out this week 

It’s a big one – on Friday the updated iteration of the Eat Lancet report will be published. Back in 2019, the Eat Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health published the first full scientific review of what a healthy diet from a sustainable food system looks like, and how to achieve it rapidly. The argument for food system transformation (changing what we eat, how we produce food, and reducing waste) has since gained traction around the world, with the Eat Lancet report playing a significant role in raising the profile of diet change in particular. Myself and our policy champion, Ali Morpeth, will be in Stockholm for the report launch and two-day Eat Forum conference this week, so won’t be doing an immediate Digest, but we’re expecting the report will be published here on Friday.  Look out for our reflections post-conference next week.

💷🪴Green Alliance report says growth of plant-based proteins could help reduce food costs

A report out yesterday from the Green Alliance, Recipe for resilience: the benefits of a thriving plant-based protein sector in the UK, argues that promoting the growth of the plant-based protein sector could help the UK government tackle food inflation. The cost of meat has gone up by £1.18/kg in the last year, while the cost of plant-based products has reduced by 14p/kg in the same time. Some plant-based products are now cheaper than meat equivalents; for example, Green Alliance estimates it costs £2.15 less to make a family-sized lasagne with plant-based mince. To date, public investment has been successful in stimulating private investment in the plant-based food sector: Every £1 of government funding has stimulated £1.92 of private investment. There are potential opportunities for some farmers too to grow the inputs needed to manufacture plant-based meat: Demand for peas could increase 23% if the government is successful in attracting more companies to the UK to use domestically grown inputs. The Committee on Climate Change has recommended replacing 20% of meat consumption with alternatives by 2035, to help reduce emissions. Expanding the plant-based meat sector in line with this trajectory could see retail sales grow from £336 million today to £2.7 billion by 2035.

Read the report

🐑📉66% of people open to reducing meat, but misconceptions persist

Eating Better recently published its public attitudes survey, this time in partnership with the Food Foundation. They commissioned Savanta to carry out a nationally representative survey of 1733 people. There are loads of interesting stats in the report, so we’d encourage you to have a look for yourselves – but in brief the three main findings are;

1. Public willingness to reduce meat consumption is growing; two-thirds of people are now open to eating less meat, however many still underestimate how widespread this willingness is among others. This perception gap, coupled with health misconceptions, highlights the importance of clearer messaging and supportive food environments. Lamb, followed by processed meat, was reduced by the most people. 22% of people eating less meat than a year ago, and almost 50% eat meat less than four times a week. Lower income groups have reduced meat more.
2. Animal welfare, affordability, and provenance outweigh climate and health as drivers of change. For the first time, the carbon footprint of meat dropped out of the top three motivators for eating less, and health fell sharply as a motivator (19% compared to 35% last year). Instead, conditions in which animals are reared, saving money, and where meat comes from lead the way in shaping shopping habits. Meat eaters were more likely to worry about not consuming enough protein if they reduced their intake of meat. Half of young people believe industrial livestock production is bad for animal welfare and the environment.
3. Beans and pulses present a major untapped opportunity. While the majority of people enjoy beans (60%) and want to eat more (44%), very few currently eat them more than twice a week, and less than half feel confident cooking with them. With strong recognition of their health (73% say beans are good for you), affordability, and environmental benefits, we need to see investment into better supporting growers and developing bean supply chains, more businesses making beans more available and appealing, and better promotion and marketing of beans to boost the role of beans in diets.

The report also has a list of recommendations for government, producers, retailers and investors. Read the report.

🌱🍄48 organisations urge Defra to promote plant-rich diets

A group of 48 organisations have proposed a 10-point plan to Defra for promoting plant-rich diets.  The coalition argues that the goals of the National Food Strategy can be met ‘if significant policy interventions are made to foster a transition to plant-rich diets’. This would ‘positively impact public health, bolster food security, enhance environmental protection, encourage economic growth and improve animal welfare’. They say the 10-point plan is affordable, achievable, supported by public opinion, and that similar policy approaches have already been implemented in Denmark and Switzerland. The plan is endorsed by leading organisations and businesses from the food, farming, health, sustainability and animal welfare sectors, including; the Food Foundation, the British Growers Association, Doctors’ Association UK, UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, Oatly and Compassion in World Farming. The plan has been submitted to new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds, and Defra Minister, Dame Angela Eagle.

The 10-point plan:

1. Leverage public procurement and catering to source and provide more plant-based foods, normalising plant-rich diets and catalysing growth in the market.
2. Encourage food supply companies to transition towards a higher proportion of sales of plant-based foods.
3. Bolster food security and economic growth through support for horticulture to produce more fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and pulses in the UK.
4. Support British farmers to increase production of plant proteins for human consumption in the UK.
5. Make it easier and more affordable for people to access and eat healthy food.
6. Raise public understanding of the health and environmental benefits of healthy plant-rich foods and diets.
7. Improve labelling to raise public understanding of health, environmental and animal welfare impacts.
8. Improve training for health and food professionals in regard to healthy plant-rich foods.
9. Update, reform and apply the Eatwell Guide dietary guidelines.
10. Increase investment in and support for healthy, sustainable alternative proteins.

Read the plan in full, or the press release.

​​​​​​​👨‍👩‍👧‍👧🏛️How ordinary citizens are working with Defra on the Food Strategy

The Citizen Advisory Council (CAC), made up of Food Foundation Ambassadors and Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) Food Conversation participants, is working with Defra to ensure the new Food Strategy reflects people’s everyday experience of food.

They have now published a report which is the culmination of that piece of work and includes a list of “common sense outcomes” that citizens want to see, covering four themes of health, food security, sustainability, and economic growth. It also sets out their intentions for the next phase, which will see the CAC expanding its work to investigate successful food initiatives across England. Over the next few months, members will visit regions where food system transformation is already happening – working directly with mayors, council leaders, businesses, and community organisations.

Read the press release ​​​​​​​

🍽️​​​​​​​↪️​​​​​​​IGD launches framework for population diet change

The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) has launched a new framework to help move the population’s diet closer to the UK government’s Eatwell Guide. IGD’s Framework for population diet change shows how organisations can accelerate healthy sustainable diet (HSD) adoption, while engaging consumers and importantly, delivering commercial value growth. Its main recommendations are:

1. Value case: reframing dietary change as a growth opportunity, not a risk
2. Business integration: embedding healthy and sustainable diet transformation into commercial strategy & organisation design
3. Data: providing the insight and evidence to prove commercial benefit, and scale what works across teams
4. Supply chain: Using farm-to-fork partnerships and shared reporting and metrics to reduce exposure to supply chain volatility
5. Innovation: Prioritising the health and environmental impact of product portfolios, alongside margin, and capitalise on next generation health trends
6. Consumer behaviour: Shifting demand through positioning, marketing, promotion spend in physical stores and digital channels
7. Policy & sector alignment: Policy implementation and consistent reporting to create a level playing field for dietary shift.

Read the executive summary of the report