Food Foundation releases 2023 Broken Plate report
The situation has deteriorated from the previous year, when the poorest fifth would have needed to spend 43% of their disposable income. Healthy life expectancy in the most deprived tenth of the population is 19 years lower for women and 18 years lower for men than in the least deprived tenth.
Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation, said: “It is perfectly possible for us to increase the flow of affordable, nutritious food through our food system and into our shops and takeaways, we just need to get the incentives right within the system. The figures in this report tell us just how badly this action is needed.
“Too many of us know family and friends that are struggling with health problems resulting from a system that directs us to foods that damage our wellbeing. Politicians need to look carefully at what the data is telling us about the state of Britain. Serious leadership in tackling this is long overdue.”
More healthy foods are over twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods, with more healthy foods increasing in price over the past two years by £1.76 per 1,000kcal compared with £0.76 for less healthy foods.
When broken down by Eatwell Guide category, fruit and vegetables remain the most expensive category by a significant margin, costing on average £11.79 per 1,000kcal compared with food and drink high in fat and/or sugar costing just £5.82 per 1,000kcal.
Shortly following Government delays to restrictions on HFSS multi-buy offers, which are a form of junk food marketing, Broken Plate reveals that a third (33%) of food and soft drink advertising spend goes towards confectionery, snacks, desserts and soft drinks compared to just 1% for fruit and vegetables.
Henry Dimbleby, author of the National Food Strategy Independent Review, commented: “It is a complete fantasy to suppose that the huge problems of diet-related disease are going to be solved by voluntary measures. The commercial incentives for companies to produce food that makes us sick are overwhelming.
“Just look at the results of the voluntary sugar reformulation programme. Cereals and yogurts are a staple of many families’ diets, and the huge levels of sugar still in so many products is shocking. We need to do better.”
The Broken Plates report, which can be accessed here, has chapters on the affordability of a healthy diet, business transparency on sales of healthy and sustainable food, advertising spend on food, ultra-processed food consumption and children’s dental decay.