Money is pouring into food tech but the “rosy” sustainability claims behind these “lack evidence”, according to research by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Experts compared the scientific evidence behind the sustainability claims of four food system technologies, including home deliveries of meals and groceries, plant-based foods, blockchain and vertical farming. They found the scientific evidence…

Countries are failing to address dietary change as part of their climate plans, according to research by Friends of the Earth. Nations agreed to update their plans (also known as national determined contributions, or NDCs) before COP27 to reflect their increased ambition to reach net-zero. However, just 26 out of 197 have done so, and…

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has admitted that key targets set within its global plastic commitment are “unlikely to be met”. This year’s update takes on a very different tone to years past. Whereas previously there had been a mixture of pats on the back and gentle kicks up the backside for the big fmcg corporates involved, this year the…

Regenerative farming must triple its rate of growth to deliver against the world’s need to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees. Research by Systemiq for the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) showed that regenerative farming needs to make up at least 40% of global cropland by 2030, up from around 15% today. Many food businesses are adopting regenerative…

More than a third of the UK’s hospitality sector is at risk of business failure in early 2023 due to the “cost of doing business crisis”. Research by UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) and Hospitality Ulster showed that 35% of those responding to the Q4 hospitality…

People are being forced into eating potentially unsafe food as the cost of living crisis heaps pressure on household budgets. Survey data from 2,000 adults from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) found that for the month of September, 32% reported that they had eaten food past its use-by date at least once because they couldn’t afford to…

Large food companies should be forced to disclose sales of salty food products after research found voluntary progress on salt reduction has stalled. The average salt content in foods fell by 0.05g/100g to 0.99g/100g between 2015 and 2020, equivalent to a 4.2% reduction, according to a new paper published in the Plos Medicine journal. Researchers described the results as…

“Liz Truss has already secured a place in history. However long she now lasts in office, she is set to be remembered as the prime minister whose grip on power was the shortest in British political history. […] she had seven days in control. That is the shelf-life of a lettuce.” That was the damning opinion…

The UK’s largest restaurant chains and catering firms are failing to publicly report their sales of healthy/healthier food or sales of animal- versus plant-based proteins. They are making plant-based products more available, however. The findings come from the Food Foundation’s annual state of the nation’s food industry report, which tracks what supermarkets, caterers and restaurant chains are…