Environment minister doubles down on food strategy despite criticism from lead adviser
Food minister George Eustice has doubled down on the government’s food strategy amid criticism it has not gone far enough to help issues like obesity and food poverty.
The lead adviser to the plan, restauranter Henry Dimbleby, has criticised the blueprint as “not a strategy”.
“It doesn’t set out a clear vision as to why we have the problems we have now and it doesn’t set out what needs to be done,” he said.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Monday morning, Eustice said that Dimbley had actually welcomed the “vast majority” of the white paper, having himself made recommendations around obesity and net zero.
“We’re addressing all of those issues, both through our farming policy, and through policies that the Department of Health announced earlier this year,” he added.
“We’ve got point of sale restrictions in place in supermarkets coming in later this year,” he said. “And that’s already driving behaviour change and reformulation in the industry.”
ets are already changing their supply chains and are already reformulating to get healthier foods,” Eustice said on Monday morning.
He pointed to snack manufacturers, such as Walkers Crisps, which has reformulated products to be so low in salt that they are no longer deemed a product eligible for restrictions.
The government has previously said plans to curb “buy one get one free” deals, as well as free refills for soft drinks, will be postponed for a year until October 2023 while officials assess the impact of rising costs for households.
Despite the government delay, some supermarkets – including the country’s largest grocer Tesco – have said they will stick with the initial timeframe of October 2022.
Ambitions to block advertising of junk food and paid-for-ads online before watershed at 9pm have also been postponed until January 2024.
However, restrictions relating to the location of foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) will be introduced as initially planned in October 2022.
The government also said it will invest some £270m across farming innovation funding programmes until 2029, to unlock sustainable farming techniques.