Eating Better

We are excited to release the updated Better by Half Roadmap, Eating Better’s guide for achieving nutritious, healthy and sustainable diets across the UK, with a focus on less and better meat and dairy. This revision builds on its creation in 2019. It is a reflection of our shared objectives as an alliance, formed through collaboration between our 68 member organisations.

Eating Better’s Better by Half roadmap calls for producers to maximise UK-based plant production in a sustainable way. Key to this is paying growers fairly and embedding accessibility across the business. We spoke to Sean Ruffell, Managing Director of Organic North in Manchester, about how they are supporting farmers and supplying organic produce to businesses across the UK.

Our recent report ‘It’s time to act on processed meat’ highlights the need to reduce processed meat for our health and the planet. Processed meat intake in infants and children is particularly concerning due to the high level of salt. We spoke to Eating Better alliance member First Steps Nutrition Trust about processed meat and young children’s health.

A new resource from Eating Better considers the health impacts of processed meat and highlights the need for public sector caterers and health organisations to focus efforts on reducing processed meat consumption in the UK.

Maddy Haughton- Boakes, Campaigns Advisor at the Changing Markets Foundation introduces their new report ‘Feeding us Greenwash’, which lifts the green veil and highlights the extent of greenwashing by food companies and how consumers respond to these environmental claims.

Food service and food retail greatly influence how we shop and what we eat and holding them to account is key to shifting the dial to get us all eating better. Using the sandwich sector as a proxy, Eating Better tracked and benchmarked retailer commitment to sustainable eating by examining changes in their sandwich offer. Our new report “Sandwiches Unwrapped 2022” looks at changes in vegetarian and plant-based sandwich ranges against meat-based ones.

Food service and food retail greatly influence how we shop and what we eat and holding them to account is key to shifting the dial to get us all eating better. Eating Better’s new report “Sandwiches Unwrapped 2022” looks at changes in vegetarian and plant-based sandwich ranges against meat-based ones, using the sandwich sector as a proxy to track and benchmark retailer commitment to sustainable eating. The analysis shows the sandwich aisle is still too meaty and plant-based too pricey.

At the start of the panel discussion on plant-based catering in the public sector, a poll of the 150+ attendees found that 69% think there is still a need to broaden the understanding amongst caterers as to the health and wider benefits of plant-based eating

Changes to menu design and language can be a low cost and effective way to encourage more sustainable diets with less meat and dairy and more plants.

Eating Better has released a new “Serving Better” film to illustrate ways in which public sector catering can take steps to put more plant-based meals on menus and serve ‘less and better’ meat and dairy.

Momentum is building behind meat reduction across the public sector and support for the PSC100 initiative, launched two years ago, to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20%. More and more chefs are being trained to develop exciting plant-based dishes for the public sector and to adapt dishes with “less and better” meat. 

A new campaign from the Soil Association exposes the use of highly hazardous pesticides in supermarket soy supply chains for chicken feed.

The menus at the Mexican inspired chain Wahaca, which has 13 sites across the UK, is now around 50% plant-based, while its sourcing policy focuses on “better” meat and local produce from the best of British farms

A new report, released today on World Health Day, by World Animal Protection and Tasting the Future, has laid bare the most damaging human health impacts linked to factory farming, and how these will only get worse as the demand for cheap meat continues to grow ...

Inspired by customer demand for healthier, more sustainable food, Food Equilibrium (Food EQ) was born out of the BaxterStorey’s Chef Academy programme, and aims to empower and inspire chefs to make plants and grains the stars of the plate. For Food EQ “fresh ingredients + well trained chefs = great food.”

With restaurants across the UK, Wagamama is helping people eat more plants by broadening its menu to make plant-rich dishes as tasty and accessible as possible. 

By making plant-based dishes sound just as appealing as meat ones, food service can nudge diners towards more sustainable choices when eating out.   

The University of Winchester developed its sustainable food policy, LIFE (local, independent, fair and ethical) in 2010, to ensure that provenance and ethical standards were a driving factor for food purchasing.

Our Better By Half roadmap calls for sustainable food to be normalised in schools, hospitals, care homes and other public institutions, but convincing councils to improve procurement and shift to sustainable menus, requires effective lobbying and co-ordinated local action to put pressure on policymakers and procurement managers to make the necessary changes.

Jenny Chandler, self professed pulse addict, author of Pulse and Super Pulses, European Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses 2016 and chef for the HSI Forward Food Programme looks at the potential of putting more pulses on catering menus.

The second installment in our trilogy of brand films explores how local authorities can address the climate and nature emergencies and improve public health by promoting sustainable diets through the food they serve.

Local diets have global impacts. We have developed a new guide and film to support local authorities to serve and source healthier, more sustainable meals.

Forward Food is the Humane Society International’s plant-based programme, working with major food service and universities to put more plants on plates.

The results from our latest survey with Public Sector Catering show the sector’s continued progress towards serving less meat in public sector meals.