3.A. Workshop: Accountability of the European food industry to improve food systems for public and planetary health
Authors:   Organised by: INFORMAS, FEAST,   Chair persons: Stefanie Vandevijvere (Belgium), Janas Harrington (Ireland)
Published: October 2023

Abstract

Currently, unhealthy food environments are a major influence on food and beverage choices and nutritional status throughout Europe. Improving population diets for both public health and environmental sustainability requires a comprehensive response from multiple stakeholders, including governments, private sector organisations, non-government organisations, and consumers. Amongst these groups, companies across the food industry have been highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations as having an important role in addressing obesity and chronic diseases (NCDs) as well as unsustainable food systems. The need for broad-based action has led to an increased focus on increasing the accountability of several sectors in the food industry for taking action to address the problem, including through rigorous monitoring and benchmarking of their commitments and performance against independent targets. The INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support) developed the Business Impact Assessment on population nutrition and obesity (BIA-Obesity) and the Business Impact Assessment on sustainability (BIA-Sustainability) to assess the commitments and practices of several food industry sectors (packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages, quick service restaurants, supermarkets, caterers) in relation to both obesity prevention and sustainable food systems. The tools consist of a range of indicators across 6 action areas for BIA-Obesity (corporate nutrition strategy, product reformulation, product labeling, product and brand promotion, product accessibility and relationships with other organizations) and 11 action areas for BIA-Sustainability (packaging, energy use, emissions, water and discharge, biodiversity, climate change adaptation, food loss and waste, environmental compliance, relationships with other organisations, corporate sustainability strategy and reducing ruminant-based products). In addition, methods have been developed to assess the corporate political activities as well as the market structure and dynamics of several food industries. Corporate political activities of the food industry across sectors are generally assessed using a range of publicly available data sourced from the industry itself, governments, the media and other sources. The workshop will discuss the latest findings on the commitments, practices, market structure and dynamics and corporate political activities of the food industry in relation to both obesity prevention and sustainable food systems across food industry sectors in Europe, as well as the next steps, both in terms of innovations in methodologies, different target sectors as well as in terms of using the results for better holding to account these actors in order to address obesity as well as unsustainable food systems in Europe.

Key messages
• Monitoring and benchmarking the commitments and practices of the food industry across sectors is key to increase accountability for action.
• Substantial changes to the structural and regulatory conditions of corporate food systems are needed to improve population and planetary health.