Supporting consumers to make healthy and sustainable food choices

Globescan and EAT Foundation commissioned a study with 31.000 consumers worldwide to find out more about the consumer perceptions of ‘Sustainable Food’. Here is what they found: Perceptions of what ‘Sustainable food’ means vary by age: For young adults ‘healthy’ and ‘sustainability’ goes hand in hand, but the the Generation X associates ‘sustainable’ with ‘organic’, ‘unprocessed’ and, in their view, this is something very different as ‘healthy’. Confusing? In addition, ‘Affordability’ and ‘availability’ are regarded as the biggest challenges for people to obtain healthy and sustainable diets.

Sustainable and healthy food matter

but connotations divert (Globescan & EAT)

In this context of broad connotations, how can food producers and governments support consumers of all age groups to make the best choices for good health and sustainability when they are about to shop for food and beverages? What should consumers like you or me look for? In this short article I dive deeper into nudge #3 for companies in food & agri:

Food purchase decisions are the results of a combination of factors - ranging from individual factors such as socio-economic status, income, rational/emotional character, values, gender, family situation, cognitive versus emotional drive) food environmental factors (availability, proximity, ease of purchase, shop lay-out, etcetera), the political and economical situation, plus situational factors (mood, setting, weather, cash, product information, price and discount etc). Not easy to influence and nudge consumers to healthy and sustainable food!

Of all means to help consumers making better informed choices I'd like to highlight the 'Front-of-Pack' food labels that summarize the environmental impact and/or the nutrition score of a food product. Without claiming this to be a silver bullet, there are some interesting experiences to share, following the launch of the 'Nutri-Score', and an 'Eco-Score' being tested first by the Fre nch and the Brits , but also Australia and Chili.

The good news is brought by WBCSD (2021), the report about the role of food labelling showed that FoP labels can help to accelerate the uptake of food and nutrition that suit a healthy and sustainable diets, however it can never be seen as a silver bullet. More detailed product data can actually help to inform environmental and/or nutrition savvy consumers to compare products within categories and make better informed choices.

One of the limitations is, that the consumer awareness about the average nutritional and environmental impact is still low for many food categories. It would be good if governments and industries unite to create more basic awareness about the 'average' nutritional content and environmental impact of food groups to help consumers realise when they pick up a product with an excellent environmental or nutritional performance.

Today's environmental impact scoring schemes use static average data, which is falling short in the case of a variety of products from different origins. Best would be if secondary data (such as national databases) would be combined with primary data (for instance on a farm) so that the real impact can be factored in an EcoScore, and interventions in agriculture and food production can be rewarded. DSM & Blonk Sustell service is an example of an on-farm environmental impact assessment tool specifically for animal sourced foods.

For food producers, Nutri-scores be a prompt to reformulate food and nutritional products, reducing sugar, sodium and saturated fats, ensuring sufficient levels of fiber. Read also the blog by Julia Besselink about balancing the nutrients of plant based foods.

The ongoing pilots show that both consumers and producers become more aware of the differences between products. It is more likely that products are developed and purchased that are better for the environment and better for health.

Food labelling is a welcome attribute to help consumers shifting to more sustainable and healthy food and nutrition. However it should always be seen in its broader context, the food culture, the actual portion, and how it contributes to a daily healthy diets. Again, here is an important role for governments and the industry to inform everyone about the constitution of a healthy and sustainable diets, in other words: making the groundbreaking reports of UN FAO , WRI , FOLU , EAT-Lancet accessible for all.