In Scotland? Learn more about FFL Scotland here.
In Scotland? Learn more about FFL Scotland here.
19 December 2024
As we reach the end of a very busy year for all of us in the food world, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the successes and challenges we’ve faced and our hopes for 2025.
Working within the food sector can feel like swimming against the tide: we know what needs to be done but it’s so often the opposite of what big players in the food system want. But we keep swimming so we can create a food system that ensures equal access to healthy and sustainable food.
This year we continued to talk about the dangers of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Excess consumption of UPFs in childhood influences lifetime food choices. This can lead to poor health outcomes, increasing the risk of developing conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer later in life. Currently, UPFs make up 67% of daily energy intake for under 14-year-olds in the UK. This is why we’re campaigning on these issues and encouraging governments to make policy decisions that prioritise good food for all.
Earlier in the year, we gave evidence to the Lords Committee on Diet, Food and Obesity. We were pleased to see them recently endorse our recommendation that government should act to make unprocessed and minimally processed foods more widely available.
We’ve been supporting food providers to make good food accessible since 2003, but in a changing world we need to adapt to today’s challenges. We’re facing tight budgets, rising costs and food scarcitybecoming more prevalent, the impact of climate change, lengthening supply chains, reduced welfare standards and lower quality produce. This is why we’ve been working hard, in collaboration with hundreds of food providers, caterers, schools, and national organisations, to update our frameworks and the support we offer.
Our Food for Life Schools Award has evolved to work within this tough environment, meaning the passionate and dedicated schools we work with can continue to embed a good food culture at the heart of education. Our Food for Life Served Here bronze standards underwent a full review, with public consultation, to work better for and with the caterers we support. We will share full details of these changes in early 2025.
We end this year on a positive note, as Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has announced that the UK government will begin work on a national food strategy. They plan to pick up where the previous government fell short on the widely supported National Food Strategy from Henry Dimbleby in 2021. In both Henry Dimbleby’s original food strategy in 2021 and Will Quince MP’s updated report in May 2024, Food for Life Served Here was cited as the solution that should be scaled nationally.
We want to encourage the next government to take up and roll out the excellent Food for Life Served Here scheme, given the difference it has been shown to make.
The Government should require all schools to work with accreditation schemes such as Food for Life to improve school food and food education.
We look forward to working with the government in 2025 to put this important work into action, supporting the health of people and the planet with access to healthy and sustainable food.
As we sign off for the year, we want to say the biggest thank you to everyone we work with. Despite so many challenges, together we are making a difference. We will continue to advocate for the changes our sector, and society, so desperately need.
