Since the summer of 2023, The Food Conversation has brought together citizens from all backgrounds and walks of life to explore and debate the food system. They delved into issues that impacted their daily lives, like the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and the (often misleading) labelling of food in shops, while also discussing how these might relate to wider power structures in the system. In this #FieldGuideForTheFuture, we caught up with participants Rich, Tahreen and Kirsti to hear more about what was working for their communities, what wasn’t, and what they wanted to change.

Rich, a dad of three with a keen interest in athletics, has always paid attention to nutrition for the good of his children’s health and for his fitness regime. Despite this, he was shocked at the prevalence of UPFs in the food system – and the impact they’re having on the health of the nation.

“I'd always seen the chemicals and things in the ingredients, but I’d always told myself that there are such small quantities it doesn't matter. I've since had quite a rethink about that."

Similarly, since taking part in The Food Conversation, gardener and avid home cook Tahreen has swapped her usual snack of a strawberry yoghurt for a piece of fruit: "When you buy a strawberry yoghurt, it's often not what we think it is: a bit of colouring, a bit of flavouring and not much fruit. A strawberry yoghurt might only have 1 or 2% strawberry in it. Regulations need to change, businesses need to change the way they advertise, and the produce has to be real.”

Kirsti, a retired grandmother from rural Northumberland, has also started to pay more attention to labels: "When I go shopping, I look at the packaging more and I buy less UPFs. I've changed my habits to be not so much about buying the cheapest available, but to pay a little more for better quality - if it's within our budget. Being pensioners, we're not exactly millionaires, so we look at what we spend."

Misleading labels are a major concern for many citizens in The Food Conversation. Late last year, a study by UCL reported that toddlers in the UK derive nearly half of their calories from UPFs. Many foods marketed as ‘healthy,’ such as wholegrain cereals and yoghurts, were found to contain copious amounts of salts and sugars. On top of this, a recent BBC panorama exposed how leading baby food brands are able to get away with misleading nutrition claims, despite some of their pouches containing more sugar than the NHS daily recommendation for infants. But how did we get here, to a food system where citizens are misled by marketing at the cost of their health?

"The food system is too business-centric,” says Rich, “Food isn't working for the average citizen. Obviously, I knew that the food industry is very much an industry, but I'd never really considered what that meant. For me, it means a bunch of companies are just doing everything they can to maximise profits first and foremost. There's this big profit motive and health is very much secondary."

The evidence proves Rich right. Despite the forecasted revenue of the UK food industry set to be £143bn in 2025, the most deprived fifth of the population would have to spend 45% of their disposable income on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet, and deprived households with children would have to spend 70% of their disposable income. Meanwhile, as demonstrated by Professor Tim Jackson in our recent report, ‘The False Economy of Big Food,’ the cost of the current food system in terms of health and productivity is an eye-watering £268bn a year.

The Food Conversation in West Yorkshire

It's clear that food isn’t working for most people. Polling carried out for The Food Conversation last year shows that, while 4/5 people think that everyone should have healthy food, less than 1/10 think that it’s affordable to most people. These figures resonate with Tahreen, who has recently started an organic vegetable community allotment: "With the cost-of-living crisis, people will go for cheaper options rather than the healthy ones because healthy is expensive. It’s not fair because everyone wants to eat well, but can they afford to? People are really struggling."

It’s not just citizens that suffer from the food system, but farmers too. Our latest report ‘Paying the Price’ found that farmers’ incomes have barely improved in real terms for 50 years and that a tiny number of big food businesses now dominate Britain’s supply chain – all with immense costs to health and nature.

According to Defra in 2023, the average farmer earns less than £20,000 a year, all while the profits of supermarkets, multinational food corporations, and megafarms continue to skyrocket. On top of this is the growing phenomenon of ‘farmwashing’ – a term coined by Riverford to refer to the marketing trend in supermarkets that uses pastoral images and Union Jack flags to give the impression that the produce has come from small, British farms. In reality, many of these items come from overseas or industrial farms which small, British farms are unable to financially compete with.

The uneven distribution of profits is something that appals Kirsti: “I’m shocked that there are four main food corporations who more or less control all of the good distribution. The way that food is put into a system was really eye-opening for quite a few participants.”

The Food Conversation in Northumberland

So, how can we rebalance the scales and make food fairer for citizens and farmers alike?

Last month, we launched the Citizen Manifesto to Fix Food, a call to action from people across the UK about what they want government to do when it comes to food. where we collated citizen demands for a fairer food system. The manifesto calls for, for example, real choice for everyone – and recommends politicians regulate ultra-processed food, phasing out the worst offenders and introducing clear warning labels. They also want stronger leadership from governments – like putting limits on corporate influence so that decisions prioritise what is good for all, not just food industry profits.

Citizens are asking government to join up thinking and action holistically in order to tackle the complex issues contained within food – from food inequalities so that everyone can afford to eat healthy food, to tackling food waste and environmentally damaging farming practices, as well as many more. Citizens also called for government to step up on labelling regulations, so that they can be made more aware of what it is they’re actually eating. As Tahreen says: "We need exactly what goes in it to be clear without making it all pretty. The ingredients need to be highlighted for people."

Stronger regulations as guardrails for big business is something that Rich can get on board with: "Food is the real medicine. With the medical industry and pharmaceuticals, we know it must be heavily regulated. Unfortunately, when companies put profit before health, terrible things happen. The way I see it, our food system is a completely unregulated medical industry." Rich also believes that government could create incentives to promote the production of healthy foods, saying, "We can't expect businesses to change because they're designed to make money. You need to either change the way businesses are or make it profitable for them to make good, real food." Regulating the food industry to promote healthier options is another one of Tahreen’s asks too, along with policies that help to support local food production and policies that make organic food more affordable.

In the meantime, Tahreen is working on inspiring her fellow gardeners: "I want people to see the produce and believe that they can do it. When they see the organic garlic, they're going to think: 'Wow, we’ve grown that, and we can grow other things.'" Kirsti has passed on her love of cooking - passed on to her from her mother - to her eight daughters and granddaughters. She meets up with them once a month to cook them a big meal with the help of her assistant granddaughters. Rich, when he’s not busy doing the school run, is finding empowerment in food by reading up more about UPFs and finding alternatives that work for him.

With the Food Strategy for England in the works, there’s real opportunity for government to bring citizens to the table. Their voices and ideas could be hugely helpful for this mission-led government – and can help rebalance a food system that prioritises shareholder profit over all else.