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AT THE RISK OF RE-OPENING THE FOOD LABELLING DEBATE, IN MANY WAYS IT COMES DOWN TO GIVING CONSUMERS THE RIGHT INFORMATION TO ENABLE THEM TO MAKE INFORMED CHOICES.
There was more worrying news in the recent National Statistics survey on obesity, which found that adult obesity rates in Britain have almost quadrupled in the last 25 years, with c. 24% of British people now classed as obese (although, encouragingly, child obesity rates have dropped slightly in the last two years)2
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However, food quality and diet have both clearly become a much more high profi le issues in recent years, and have penetrated widely into the public consciousness – leading to pressure on food companies and retailers too.
So how are retailers responding to this trend? It seems that it is beginning to drive change. We’ve just seen, for example, Tesco launch a brand new healthy food range for people ‘on the go’, with products colour-coded according to fi ve different calorie bands, so customers can see at a glance which products fi t their personal plans.
However, it will take more than this to solve the problem. There remain major issues with nutritional distribution at a macro level. Currently we under deliver nutrients to 1.9 billion people while another 1 billion are over consuming, resulting in rising obesity and associated diseases.3
Changing the way we eat is about more than just putting new products on the shelf; it is about educating consumers on the current products on the shelf too. At the risk of re- opening the food labelling debate, in many ways it comes down to giving consumers the right information to enable them to make informed choices. For example, that low fat often means high sugar – a fact that is simply not appreciated by many consumers.
There is widespread recognition that we need to do more around changing the way we eat. The prominence of lifestyle related diseases is forcing patients and consumers to become more focused on the food they consume. And this, coupled with the healthcare industry shifting towards ‘prevention’ away from focussing purely on ‘cure’, will only serve to drive greater convergence between food and medicine.
2 Statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet, England 2014., National Statistics (26 February 2014) 3 The Foresight Report on The Future of food & farming: Challenges & Choices for global sustainability
© 2014 KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, is a subsidiary of KPMG Europe LLP and a member fi rm of the KPMG network of independent member fi rms affi liated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
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