📜 Why passion and authenticity beat expertise

I stumbled into food when I first became a parliamentarian. Former MP Laura Sandys and the Food Foundation asked me if I would chair the All Party Parliamentary Group on the National Food Strategy. At that point I knew very little about the importance of a national food strategy and over the next two and a half years, having read the work that Henry Dimbleby led on, it was a no-brainer to me that this is massively important. You always used to see the same colleagues at the Diabetes UK receptions stand holding up signs saying we must reduce diabetes by 50% by 2030, but you can’t say we need to do more preventative work for various diseases without addressing the fundamental underlying issue: our poor diet.

I don’t blame people for picking the wrong foods and having unhealthy diets. There needs to be government intervention to help consumers make better food choices because it’s a bit like smoking – you would never have changed people’s behaviour patterns on smoking simply by having the ‘please don’t smoke’ adverts and all the individual patches and things because it’s not about individual behaviour change.

There are some MPs you won’t convince because it’s a soundbite for them, there’s no intellectual rigour behind what they say. That’s their way of dismissing it. The way you tackle this is to frame the issue differently, but a lot of the framing work in the food space is preaching to the converted. That’s the challenge that I’ve had – I’ve been in rooms with experts that have the most compelling PowerPoints and you just go [shakes head]. You have to frame it around something that people will get behind. Nobody’s going to say it’s not important for our children to have the best start in life. You can focus on education, on the importance of understanding nutrition in every school, and the importance of knowing how to prepare food. The Buy British campaign can easily be used. People are interested in supporting Britain and the local economy. We need to highlight the best of British in terms of food that’s local and healthy. 

I’ve never seen the food industry as being the demons in this. From a commercial point of view, the more people are made aware of healthy foods and how to keep healthy, the more profitable it is for retailers to stock these foods, and manufacturers to develop healthier options.