Batchelar highlighted recent headlines over the sugar tax controversy and the hotly anticipated government strategy on childhood obesity in a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday (January 7).
“We have a number of current issues that have come together, that have created an unprecedented crisis,” she told the conference in Oxford.
“Lot’s of things that have slowly come to pass have now created the perfect nutritional storm.”
Less variety in diets
Key factors
- Obesity and disease
- Eating out
- Less variety
- Little education
- More allergies
- Cheap food
Batchelar said food was cheaper than ever, people ate out of their homes more, there was less variety in customers’ diets and food allergies remained on the rise.
As well as highlighting the risks of obesity and other diet-related diseases, she said essential skills about how to eat properly were not being taught in schools.
“Some of us have campaigned about the removal of the [food] A level, but that is now gone so there is very little in the curriculum to teach our young people to look after themselves,” she said.
Despite the well-documented dangers of a poor diet, she said most dietary improvements have not stemmed from individuals changing their behaviour.
‘Stealth and reformulation’
“Most of the improvements we have seen have come through stealth and reformulation, not by people changing their eating habits,” she said.
Key interventions included: better nutritional labelling, the sale of more fresh produce with short supply chains and the reformulation of products, for example to reduce salt, sugar and fat.
But she added: “It’s not just about reformulation – that’s only part of the story. There are limits to how far that can go. And it’s not just taking things out, but putting things in, optimising what is already in there.”
Agriculture had an important role to play in increasing the nutritional value of crops, dairy products and livestock, she added.
“The reason primary agriculture, processing, manufacturing and retailing have to work together … is because soil, plant, animal health and human health are all inextricably linked,” she said.
Batchelar is a registered nutritionist and has spent more than 30 years in the food and drink industry, including 11 year as director of Sainsbury’s brand.
View from Sainsbury
“Most of the improvements we have seen have come through stealth and reformulation, not by people changing their eating habits.”
- Judith Batchelar, Sainsbury’s director of brand