Industry is not force-feeding consumers
The executive summary in the SDC's swansong, a report 'Looking Back, Looking Forward' laments the fact that, over the past 10 years, not much was achieved in the area of sustainability and food policy. It urges the present government to "speed up the pace and scale of change". Presumably this won't be too difficult when starting from a position of little achievement over 10 years.
Among the SDC's parting recommendations is the setting up of a "new expert body", which sounds remarkably like a successor to the old SDC, which we must presume was abolished for a reason.
It also calls for a plethora of new bodies and initiatives, including a Delivery Plan Implementation Group led by a Delivery Champion; two separate enquiries into the small farming sector and into revitalising food growing skills; a sustainable procurement delivery team and 'Tsar'; new fiscal policies to improve affordability of healthy and sustainable food choices; and creation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of a "Commission of Inquiry to explore access to land for sustainable food production".
All this by September 2011, and it would cost more to run than the SDC. The words 'cloud-cuckoo' and 'land' come to mind.
The new PHRD coincidentally tackles one of the SDC's priority areas, though not necessarily in the way the SDC would have liked. The deal involves pledges by industry and government, but surely there is a partner missing: consumers. Any number of initiatives to label and reformulate will come to nought unless consumers take responsibility for their own health. Awareness may be improving but people are still getting fatter.
Some groups try to blame the food industry as if it were force-feeding its customers like they were foie-gras producing geese. But manufacturers can't be expected to volunteer to produce less food in order to limit supply to the consumer. No, at the end of the day, people will have to elect to eat fewer calories, rebalance their diets and allow demand to shape supply rather than the reverse.
There is only so much industry can do to provide a wider choice of healthier foods. But overweight consumers will still be able to choose slices of cake instead of apples unless they understand the cumulative effect it could have on their bodies.
The inalienable fact that it is the consumer who decides what and how much to eat has to be the main focus of any policy aimed at healthy and sustainable diets. The sooner that nettle is grasped the nearer we are to a solution. And it may have to be at the expense of political correctness.
Clare Cheney is director general of the Provision Trade Federation
