Mandatory vs voluntary regulation - what’s best for the food industry?

Food Matters Live Podcast

This episode features a panel discussion from the Food Matters Live event regarding the effectiveness of mandatory versus voluntary food reg

Key takeaways

• The UK soft drinks industry levy successfully drove significant sugar reduction through anticipation and mandatory structure.
• Mandatory policies provide a level playing field, reducing competitive anxiety for companies 'going first'.
• Reformulation faces hurdles such as maintaining taste and texture while managing cost implications.
• There is an emerging trend of developing products specifically to support users of GLP-1 medications.
• The Food Standards Agency emphasizes the need for businesses to engage with regulators early in the innovation process.

Main topics

• Mandatory vs Voluntary Regulation
• Soft Drinks Industry Levy
• Nutrient Profiling Models

Notable quotes

If we really want to shift the dial... you need to make it mandatory.

Conclusion

The episode highlights that while mandatory regulation is a powerful t

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Welcome to the Food Matters Live podcast, where we showcase the innovations, the big ideas and the visionaries in the food industry. We dig deep, we look to the future and the past, and we question everything we think we know about food. I'm Anthony Zahra, and this episode was recorded live at the Food Matters Live event held at London's Olympia. Now, this episode is all about the policies shaping the future of food. from mandatory regulation and reformulation to sustainability. And we ask the question, what's best for the food industry when it comes to regulation? Voluntary or mandatory? Speaker 6 (0:41) So in this session, we want to explore some of the emerging policies and regulations, particularly relating to nutrition, diet and health, that are on the horizon for the food industry. And talk a little bit about how the industry is going to try and adapt to those changes. And also maybe explore how the industry might leverage some competitive advantage. Speaker 6 (1:05) So I said to the panelists that I think these discussions work better when they're a conversation rather than scripted answers. But I have got a set of questions, but please feel free, all of the panelists chip in if you want to build on somebody else's comment. Speaker 6 (1:21) I want to start the session with just some introductions, then we'll have about 15 minutes of chat and then we'll hopefully have a bit of time for questions from the audience. So I'll start by introducing myself. My name's Craig Ledley. I'm the chief executive at the Institute of Food Science and Technology. So now I'll ask the panellists to each introduce themselves and maybe just give a bit of background as to your background that's relevant to this conversation. Sharon, do you want to start? Speaker 2 (1:46) Yes, thank you, Craig. So my name is Sharon Moray and I am a Regulatory Affairs Manager at Camden BRI. And I have many years experience working in the nutrition and health sector, primarily in the area of food supplements, nutraceuticals. Speaker 5 (2:05) Hi, I'm Pete Scarborough. I'm a professor of population health at Oxford University. And my work is based around evaluating public health policy, specifically around food, and also looking at both sustainable and health outcomes of different food policies. I also worked on the development of the nutrient profile model back in 2004, many, many years ago, and an evaluation of the soft drink industry. Speaker 3 (2:30) I'm Hannah Brunston. I am head of policy and advocacy at a charity called the Food Foundation. I have a background in nutrition and have spent all of my career in the charity sector working on various health and nutrition policies to kind of prevent obesity and improve health. Speaker 4 (2:45) Hi, I'm Lavanya Kala. I'm the head of innovation policy at the Food Standards Agency. So we are the food regulator and I'm here in my capacity from the Food Standards Agency. Thank you. Speaker 6 (2:59) Thank you, everyone. OK, so I want to start fairly big picture. Sharon, you're working a lot with industry. So can you say a little bit about what some of the major inquiries are that are coming across your desk in this whole area? In Speaker 2 (3:13) this type of area, the key things that we have been asked about are, I would say, the nutrient profiling model or rather the... pending change to the 2018 model, which is going to introduce a requirement for recording of the free sugars. So there are challenges for industry in that respect. So we are dealing with lots of inquiries there. Another emerging question, because I deal a lot with claims, etc. We're getting a lot of products that are being developed to support users of the medication. So GLP-1. friendly products. And there's an area of that which is quite interesting in terms of compliance and claims. General reformulation, companies are looking to innovate to try and give themselves an edge. So it might be, again, building on the GLP-1. There might be to look at adding protein to make products more nutrient dense or adding fiber, etc. Those are probably two of the key areas that we're looking at. Speaker 6 (4:19) And are you getting any insights on what the big challenges are for people where they're really struggling to do what they need to do? Speaker 2 (4:26) Certainly areas such as adding nutrients, whether it be vitamins, minerals or fibre, etc. Not so much protein. You get challenges with taste, texture. Obviously, there are cost implications as well. for industry to look at. I think there's also an element of consumer trust in terms of the claims that are being made. There's a danger of getting lots of background noise when you're trying to make too many claims for a product. And consumers are sort of getting a little weary about that. So it's finding that key USP for a product that companies need to do in order to gain the market edge. I think. Speaker 6 (5:11) Would anyone else like to comment or build on that at all before we move on? Was everyone happy? Okay, let's move on then. Speaker 6 (5:21) I want to talk a little bit about policies that have already been put in place and to think about where we've got evidence about what actually works. So Hannah, can I maybe start with you? What's your assessment of the soft drinks industry levy and what's your take on it? So I Speaker 3 (5:41) think the soft drinks industry levy was a really interesting policy. It came in at a time when reformulation was the kind of big... game in town in terms of improving the nutritional kind of composition of foods. And I think what we've seen very clearly is that when you introduce a sort of a fiscal incentive into a system, change happens, and it happens quite quickly. Most of the reformulation that we've seen off the back of the soft drinks industry levy happened sort of quite soon after the announcement, not just as it came in. So I think, I think for me, the big kind of learning from from that policy is that sort of mandatory policies work. We've seen at the same time to when the soft drinks industry levy came in a voluntary reformulation program across a wide range of foods and the amount of sugar that's been reduced has been significantly lower than what we've managed to see in soft drinks. And I think it's really important that we sort of remember that what that does is it levels the playing field for businesses and it means everybody's on the same on the same page and making the changes. So I think For me, that's the big takeaway. There's been, you know, a big sugar reduction. There's been some health benefits. I think what's really good about sugar reduction, particularly on something like soft drinks, is that we talk a lot about obesity, but I think dental health is also a really important thing that we forget, particularly in young children. And we can see the benefit of reducing sugar in children. So, yeah, I guess my assessment is it's a good policy. And I think there's a lot we can learn from that moving forward. But I know Pete's done a lot of work evaluating it. So maybe you can comment a bit more on the health outcome. Well, I Speaker 5 (7:18) mean, so the clear picture, the way that it was designed was to encourage soft drink manufacturers to either reduce the portion size or reduce the amount of sugar that was included. We saw a really massive effect in terms of reducing sugar in drinks. I mean, you can see from before the announcement of the levy to after when it was actually implemented, you suddenly see this huge spike of drinks between four and four and a half. grams of of sugar so like just below the five gram uh threshold where it was kind of set just kind of in there so they were clearly turning towards that we reckon about a third of the soft drinks market like uh drinks on the market actually kind of changed their sugar levels to kind of hit that those drinks that