Food & Health Alliance

The issue that speaker after speaker in both the plenary and workshop sessions returned to was: now we have the policy, how can we ensure we have the maximum impact? How can we turn words into reality?

A number of speakers reported on initiatives that were already starting to have a measurable impact on people’s eating and lifestyle. Katherine Bishop, for instance, described how the government’s Take Life On campaign was having a real effect on consumers’ buying habits and behaviour.

Susan Pryde from the FSA Scotland revealed that its push to cut salt intake had led to significant progress on two fronts. The agency had overseen big cuts in the amount of salt in a range of foods from bread and breakfast cereals to cakes, snacks and biscuits. At the same there had been a small reduction in Scots’ daily intake of salt over the five years of the campaign – although there was still a long way to go.

Meanwhile speakers at the social marketing workshops offered encouraging signs of progress on several fronts. The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign, for instance, has already led to 200,000 households in Scotland cutting down on waste. The result was £40 million savings a year, equivalent to 70,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Eat More Fish campaign has been so successful it has been extended into the new year. Nicki Holmyard from Seafood Scotland told her audience that in the first six months fish sales had risen by 10% in value and 6% in volume with fresh seafood sales showing even bigger increases.

The drive for local, sustainable food also appears to be gaining ground. The local food and health workshop heard about the extraordinary success of a group of Argyll food producers on the rock festival circuit as well as burgeoning horticultural projects in some of the remoter islands.

But inevitably there are going to be tensions between some of the different strands of the new policy. As one participant noted in their evaluation: ‘We have an agenda of local and sustainable food yet we export half of our food.’ And, she added: ‘Local food is not necessarily affordable to all. How are we going to make it affordable?’

Everyone acknowledged that if current successes were to be built on, a genuinely cross-cutting agenda had to be adopted across departments and sectors. Fergus Millan, from the Scottish Government, pointed out that one of the most important objectives over the next two decades would be tackling the obesity epidemic and this stood little chance of success unless the target of cutting obesity informed all policies, not just the healthy eating agenda.

Participants also faced up to the apparent paradox that Scotland could be celebrated as ‘the land of food and drink’ while having one of the worst diet-related health records in the developed world. One of the central targets of the new policy is supporting the growth of the food and drink industry but clearly this must not be at the expense of health and good eating habits.

And although the conference was asked to focus specifically on the food and health aspects of the new policy, all recognised this had to be placed in the wider context of sustainability, security and protecting the environment.

Perhaps the key to future success is going to be partnership working, suggested Charles Milne, the new director of FSA Scotland, who introduced and closed the conference.

‘Ultimately we all want the same thing of safe, healthy food that’s available for all,’ he told his audience. ‘We’re also looking to reduce the incidence of food-related diseases and address health inequalities.’

A conference is ultimately of course about its participants and most were highly enthusiastic about what they had heard during the day. ‘An excellent and worthwhile day,’ commented one. ‘Loads to take back that will help me in my jobs.’ Another said the event had given them ‘a much better understanding of food strategy at a national level and an opportunity to meet a wide spectrum of the health and food world.’

‘For someone who doesn’t work with any of the agencies involved it takes hard work and determination to connect and link this together yourself,’ commented one participant. ‘It was fantastic to meet with the spectrum of agencies and initiatives involved.’ And another felt it was good to hear from ‘other perspectives, contributing to an overall sense of what different work streams of the new policy are doing.’ But, they added, ’it’s less clear the extent to which these are linked and working together.’

And of course the acid test of any gathering is the networking that goes on outside the conference hall. One participant spoke for many when they marvelled at ‘meeting so many people with a common goal and interest, each with a wealth of experience, different perspectives and a willingness to share. Networking at its best!’