Keeping good company

Did anyone really intend for this happen? According to FFCC's False Economy of Big Food: 2026 Update, unhealthy diets now cost the UK an estimated £298 billion a year. This is almost six times the additional £51 billion required for everyone to afford a healthy diet. If environmental costs such as climate change and biodiversity loss were included, these hidden costs would climb even higher. 

Whether the harmful impacts of today’s food economy are intentional or not, they are an inevitable and integral part of the business model of many food corporations. That’s a disturbing finding. 

In its 2023 series on the commercial determinants of health, the Lancet found that “a substantial group of commercial actors are escalating avoidable levels of ill health, planetary damage, and inequity.” They described this as a “pathological system in which commercial actors are increasingly enabled to cause harm and externalise the costs of doing so.” 

Well, we’ve calculated the costs. And they are massive. 

Fortunately, this “pathological system” is not universal. Many businesses make a positive contribution to health, society and nature while also turning a decent profit. This might be part of their brand identity or product positioning.  In other cases, the business owners, managers and employees simply believe it’s the right thing to do. 

So, what’s the difference? 

One potential explanation is offered by a technical sounding publication that came out on the same day as our False Economy report.  The draft international standard ISO/DIS 37011 Purpose-Driven Organizations - Guidance is out for consultation.  Could it be quietly revolutionary? 

Corporate mission or purpose statements are nothing new. No self-respecting global food corporation would be without one: “to provide safe, nutritious, affordable food”, “to unlock the power of food and beverages to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come”, or how about “more smiles with every sip and every bite”?  Well, the shareholders and executives are smiling – of that I am certain. 

Words are clearly not enough. To mean what you say, and then actually make it happen, requires practical commitment.  

Certification as a "B corp" is one way that businesses hold themselves to account for their social and environmental impacts. Other schemes are developed for specific sectors, such as the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s Food Made Good standard. 

The new ISO 37011 offers a formal governance framework for aligning an organisation with “the long-term wellbeing of all people and the planet.” It does not stop at a purpose statement but runs through strategy, decision-making and impact measurement.  

All these standards are voluntary. To really have an impact, should they be mandatory. Is there a democratic mandate for that? 

Our report Net Gain or Net Drain suggests there might be. We developed a framework with measurable themes based on the Food Conversation, the UK’s largest citizen-centred enquiry into the food system.  Crucially, this framework is not based on what Big Food says that consumers want. It is built from what citizens themselves say they want: fair distribution of money and power, availability and affordability of healthy food, minimisation of environmental harm, thriving local economies, and better public health outcomes.  

But despite ground-breaking work by the government in using innovative forms of democratic engagement, the loudest voices in the room are still the largest agrifood and retailing businesses.  Defra met food businesses over 1,400 times between 2020 and 2024, forty times more often than it met food NGOs. How much of the UK’s £298 billion dietary health crisis was caused by those same businesses sitting across the table?  Bear in mind that £104 billion of these costs fall directly on the Exchequer in direct healthcare, social care and welfare spending. 

Purpose-driven governance, on its own, is unlikely to solve a £298 billion problem. To flip the ‘commercial determinants of health’ into a force for good requires fixing broken markets too, so that financial incentives are aligned with delivering healthy food, sustainably produced with fair economic outcomes. 

But it is still a useful thought experiment to pick a product off the shelf and ask exactly how the producer would claim this enhances, rather than harms, human, animal and planetary wellbeing.  How would the retailer articulate their case?  How many products would survive a ‘purpose test’? 

Purpose standards are voluntary. Perhaps making them mandatory is too much of a leap. But how about this: no food business should be afforded a meeting with ministers or civil servants unless they conform to a recognised, rigorous, purpose-led standard. Then at least everyone can be having the same conversation with same purpose in mind – the public interest.