Eating Better

Eating Better launches a new guide to strengthening civil society collaboration, working towards healthy and sustainable dietary change based on its 9 years experience and insights from across alliances in other European countries. 

Eating Better alliance member Sustain publishes new report on how UK councils are tackling the climate and nature emergency through food.

This year, we’ve made great strides to improve understanding of the food system, influence the agenda for change and grow the alliance, and to showcase positive practices and track progress towards producing and serving 'less and better' meat and dairy in line with our Better by Half roadmap.

Ecologist and author, Carl Safina; scholar and activist, Dr Vandana Shiva; Director at the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London, Professor Corinna Hawkes; writer, activist and academic, Professor Raj Patel; and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Olivier De Schutter, among top speakers announced.

How Hubbub used football as a hook to inspire fans to eat less meat  

In 2022, Organic September is focused on raising awareness of the incredible benefits organic farming can bring for our climate, nature and health.

“I’m truly sorry man’s dominion has broken nature’s social union.” Robert Burns, from the poem “To a Mouse” (on turning up her nest with a plough) Living and working as a farmer at Mossgiel farm in East Ayrshire in the late 1700’s, Scotland’s Bard, Robert Burns, captured in this simple line from his poem, “To a Mouse,” our connection with nature and our ability, with destructive practices, to break that union. Today Mossgiel Organic farm is a very different place, an inspiring model of better dairy production, where nature is being restored.

Mossgiel Organic in Ayrshire is the model of better dairy production. It’s transitioned from an intensive system to one which is certified by Eating Better member, Pasture for Life and SOPA (Scottish Organic Producers Association), while working closely with another alliance member, The Soil Association. Farming in tandem with nature with fewer animals and inputs, as called for in our Better by Half roadmap, the herd of 45 Ayrshire cows are milked once a day and the calves stay with their mums, being weaned at 4 months, when they start eating grass and herbal leys. The focus is on the highest standards of animal welfare, boosting biodiversity and producing a premium product, which is in high demand.

The spotlight is on school food this week, as the annual LACA show and forum takes place in Birmingham. The theme of this year’s event by catering leaders across the school sector, or “The School Food People” as LACA likes to be known as, is “Get back on track” with keynote speakers and panel discussions on how to make school food healthier and more sustainable, at a time when budgets are being squeezed and public sector caterers are facing further challenges from rising food costs, supply chain issues and staff shortages.

Food service and food retail greatly influence how we shop and what we eat and holding them to account is key to shifting the dial to get us all eating better. Using the sandwich sector as a proxy, Eating Better tracked and benchmarked retailer commitment to sustainable eating by examining changes in their sandwich offer. Our new report “Sandwiches Unwrapped 2022” looks at changes in vegetarian and plant-based sandwich ranges against meat-based ones.

Food service and food retail greatly influence how we shop and what we eat and holding them to account is key to shifting the dial to get us all eating better. Eating Better’s new report “Sandwiches Unwrapped 2022” looks at changes in vegetarian and plant-based sandwich ranges against meat-based ones, using the sandwich sector as a proxy to track and benchmark retailer commitment to sustainable eating. The analysis shows the sandwich aisle is still too meaty and plant-based too pricey.

Ensuring everyone has access to a healthy diet that doesn’t cost the earth is a critical priority. The Food Strategy falls desperately short on effective, evidence-based measures to achieve this.

Eating Better regularly conducts public attitude surveys to take the temperature of where people are on the journey to shifting to sustainable diets with less meat and dairy and more plant-based foods. We examine what the trends are and what the barriers are to change. This year’s analysis also took a deep dive into food-to-go to find out what’s happening in that sector and if sandwiches, a British staple, are still popular.

As the UK’s civil society was coming to terms with the lack of ambition of its government’s National Food Strategy, which according to the Committee for Climate Change “will do precious little to tackle emissions from agriculture which is now one of the most serious contributors to climate change”, alliance member Changing Markets launched a new study looking at how much different measures can contribute to methane reductions in agriculture. The study confirms that policies promoting healthier diets could lead to the biggest methane cuts in the EU. Blog for Eating Better by Nusa Urbancic, Campaigns Director at the Changing Markets Foundation

The government has published its first food strategy in 75 years, in response to the independent review by its lead food adviser, Henry Dimbleby. Although the government has accepted some of the review’s recommendations, there is still a lot missing from the document, in particular the lack of acknowledgement on the need to reduce meat production and consumption to tackle the climate, nature and health crises.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network’s (NFFN) first annual Nature Friendly Farming Week (16-20 May) celebrated nature-friendly farming for five full days, where nature-friendly farmers took part in daily themes to share their experiences online using the daily hashtags.

At the start of the panel discussion on plant-based catering in the public sector, a poll of the 150+ attendees found that 69% think there is still a need to broaden the understanding amongst caterers as to the health and wider benefits of plant-based eating

Eating Better’s newest member is Kids Kitchen, a social enterprise building health and community from running scratch cooking sessions, to help families with under 5s explore and enjoy sustainable eating.

Changes to menu design and language can be a low cost and effective way to encourage more sustainable diets with less meat and dairy and more plants.

Eating Better has released a new “Serving Better” film to illustrate ways in which public sector catering can take steps to put more plant-based meals on menus and serve ‘less and better’ meat and dairy.

Momentum is building behind meat reduction across the public sector and support for the PSC100 initiative, launched two years ago, to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20%. More and more chefs are being trained to develop exciting plant-based dishes for the public sector and to adapt dishes with “less and better” meat. 

A new campaign from the Soil Association exposes the use of highly hazardous pesticides in supermarket soy supply chains for chicken feed.

To tackle climate change we urgently need to transition away from industrial livestock production  

The youth-led food campaigning charity, Bite Back has joined Eating Better. Founded by Jamie Oliver, the charity puts young people at the heart of changing our food systems.