Diets high in ultra-processed foods could be linked to an increased risk of developing and dying from cancer, a new study has found. Researchers from Imperial College London’s School of Public Health found that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with a greater risk of developing cancer overall, and specifically with ovarian and brain…

Farmers will be paid for reducing insecticides and growing legumes as part of government plans to encourage more environmentally friendly farming. Defra secretary, Thérèse Coffey, this week announced a raft of new plans for the UK Government’s environmental land management schemes (ELMs) which are designed to incentivise farmers to produce food sustainably while protecting nature…

Supermarket CEOs are earning up to 224 times more than their average employee, who are increasingly battling food poverty, writes Jack Thompson.  Tortoise Media’s Responsibility 100 Index scores companies on environmental, social and ethical metrics and compares how their claims match up to their action.  Its findings exposed a continued trend of those at the top prospering while…

Surging energy and fertiliser prices will have by far the greatest impact on food security in the coming decades, according to new research. High fertiliser prices linked to the war in Ukraine could put an additional 100 million people globally at risk of undernourishment, a modelling study led by University of Edinburgh researchers has found.…

The government should raise the ambition of schemes that will pay farmers to adopt more nature friendly practices. That’s according to a coalition of more than 50 food businesses, banks, farmers and NGOs which has called for “bold and decisive action” to create “a productive, regenerative, and resilient food system into the future”. Coordinated by…

UK farmers can receive less than 1% of the profit from the food they sell with supermarkets, retailers and processors taking the vast majority.  NGO Sustain compared the distribution of money in retail supply chains and alternative routes to market, such as box schemes. Dairy farmers made 2% of the profits that large retailers enjoyed…

Businesses have been urged to do more to help curb the impact the UK’s food waste is having on climate change after a survey found mixed progress in implementing best practice guidance for labelling and storage. A retail survey published this week by Wrap analysed date label application along with storage and usage advice provided by eleven…

This time last year the Ellen MacArthur Foundation claimed that plastic use by big businesses was “likely to peak in 2021”. The latest update of its global plastic commitment shows this wasn’t the case, however. Use of virgin plastic is now as high as it was when the programme started in 2018, while the percentage of plastic…

Critical shifts in the way we produce and consume food are needed to achieve global food security and limit warming to 1.5°C. That’s according to a new report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) which warned that significantly more action across all industry sectors is needed this decade to keep the Paris Agreement’s goal of…