IGD published a report on driving change for healthy sustainable diets on 11^th October. The report looks at how the food industry can drive healthier and more sustainable diets in the UK.

Since 2019, IGD have been conducting real-life behaviour change trials with retailers, testing what works and what doesn’t. The research helps the industry build knowledge around how to shift diets, accelerate the pace of change in food retail and healthy policy.

The latest report highlights the findings from three real-life behavioural change trials:

• Does boosting the value of Healthy Start vouchers help low-income families improve their diets?
• Should plant-based products be sold alongside meat?
• Do promotions on fruit and vegetables drive long-term behaviour change?

This report is second to the report released last year, which has resulted in sustainable diets becoming embedded into the government food strategy. Multiple government departments have joined forces to fund research on driving positive behaviour change for health and sustainability.

Now with the additional challenges we face due to the cost-of-living crisis, the urgency of action has been amplified. High inflation is causing a decline in real incomes and health is failing down the priority list for many struggling households. For some low-income households, the cost of travel will limit their ability to shop around and the cost of cooking a meal may become a deciding factor on what, how often and when to eat.

In previous recessions, there has been an increase in levels of obesity and malnutrition, so we must act now to ensure health disparities do not worsen.

To read the report in full, click here.