Food doesn’t just link us with each other, it also links us with the environment. For us to tackle the grand challenges of climate change, food security and human health, we need to take a big picture view, or a food systems approach, to deliver the changes that are required. This will involve everyone across the whole food system, from different academic disciplines, to NGOs, business, government, and citizens.
The £47.5M ‘Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme’ is delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, PHE, Innovate UK and FSA. It is an interdisciplinary research programme that will help to fundamentally transform the UK food system within a global context by addressing two over-arching questions:
- If we put healthy people and a healthy natural environment at the heart of the food system, what would we eat, how would we encourage people to eat it, and where would that food come from? What would we grow and manufacture in the UK and what would we need to import?
- In delivering this transformed food system, what interventions would be needed across government, business, and civil society?
This Food Systems SPF Programme will consider the complex interactions between health, environment, economic and behavioural factors across the food system, while taking into account the wider needs for different groups in society. The Food Systems SPF Programme will foster a joined-up approach linking nutritionally healthy and accessible diets with sustainable food production and supply. It will deliver coherent evidence to enable strong action from government, business, and civil society to help achieve dietary health, obesity reduction and net zero emission goals.
As part of the Food Systems SPF Programme, a new joint research fellowship post between the Food Standards Agency and UKRI SPF Programme was established. We are now delighted to welcome Dr Bethan Mead, into this position. Bethan will be carrying out an exciting 3-year fellowship supported by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) at the University of Liverpool, where her research will focus on understanding consumer and stakeholder perception and acceptance of urban grown food and alternative proteins, in a transforming UK food system.
Achieving food system transformation requires innovative, safe, and sustainable solutions to ensure consumers can confidently make informed food choices that support human and planetary health. Increasing acceptance and consumption of urban grown food (for example, urban horticulture) and alternative proteins has been identified as one of these solutions. Acceptance relies on consumers first having trust in the health, safety and regulation of such products.
Bethan’s research project will enable this by identifying and addressing barriers to acceptance of urban grown food and alternative proteins in a transformed food system. Based on this research, Bethan and her team will work with stakeholders and consumers to co-design a comprehensive roadmap of recommendations to inform policy that supports an increased uptake of urban grown food and alternative proteins. This exciting, interdisciplinary research project will be conducted in collaboration with UKRI partners, policy makers, stakeholders, and civil society to ensure that safety, regulation, and the consumer are at the heart of research driving change in the food system.
To find out more about Bethan’s project you can read her blog on the FSA website.
Supported by the FSA and working closely with UKRI partners, this fellowship will also play a key role in strengthening research engagement. Bethan will be working across the FSA and the Food Systems SPF Programme to champion food safety within the UK research community, ensuring regulatory guidance is taken into consideration.
Professor Guy Poppy, Director of the Transforming UK Food Systems SPF Programme and former Chief Scientific Adviser for the FSA, shared that ‘there is no doubt that it is important to understand consumers and what they want from the food system and how their choices and values can be considered in future food systems. The public played a major role in the move away from single use plastics and for increasing awareness of sustainability in many sectors, including the food sector.
‘It is very exciting to welcome Dr Bethan Mead to this fellowship, bringing invaluable expertise in working with the public and their behaviours with respect to food, especially in urban environments. It also enhances an important collaboration with the FSA, the non-ministerial government department which not only regulates many parts of the food system but focus on other consumer interests in food and ensuring they have food that is safe and that they can trust. As our SPF aims to transform the UK food system, it will be essential to work with organisations like the FSA in order to have a healthier and more trusted food system in the UK.’
The Food Systems SPF Programme so far has funded four £6M research projects for 5-years, bringing together different UK research organisations, businesses, and civil society, taking an interdisciplinary approach to drive change. Having started in early January 2021, they bring together different parts of the food system including food production, distribution, procurement, and availability aiming to improve human and planetary health.
A Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) worth £5M will support approximately 60 students who have the drive to become the voices of the food system future. Led by the University of Greenwich along with several other institutions they aim to deliver a pipeline of skilled people who are able to apply critical interdisciplinary systems thinking to health and sustainability challenges, across academia, industry and government.
As an additional part of the Food Systems SPF Programme, £14M will support two to three- year smaller projects which will focus on specific challenges in the food system.
We are excited for what the next few years will hold, and the knowledge and research that Bethan will bring to the Food Systems SPF Programme.