Sustainable Bites

Sustainable Bites: 6th July 2023?

Welcome to our new biweekly round-up of food, sustainability and hospitality news bites. Dig in…?

The bite-sized version?

• Water shortages are a growing concern for consumers around the world?
• Food insecurity in the UK remains rife, and income disparities have an enormous effect on access to healthy food?
• Slow Food keeps the pressure on the EU to ensure that revised Animal Rights legislation does enough to safeguard the well-being of farmed animals?
• Diversity and inclusion are still an issue in UK hospitality – a new Be Inclusive Hospitality report highlights that we need to do better?
• Lab grown meat becomes a reality in the US, as government bodies give the green light for two companies to start cultivating meat from live animal cells?
• Zero waste menus and restaurant-led community initiatives are two of the biggest predicted food trends for 2023-24??

Water scarcity begins to hit home?

Mintel have released a new study called Global Outlook on Sustainability: A Consumer Study . Amongst a wealth of findings, one that stands out is an increased focus on water scarcity. The number of consumers around the world who rank water shortages in their top three environmental concerns has risen faster in the past year than for any other environmental issue. In 2021, fewer than three in 10 (27%) people said they were worried about water shortages; that figure now stands at 35%.?

While water scarcity has long been a problem in the developing world, it seems that there has been a harsh reality check for many in the cultural West: as the effects of climate change become more intense and widespread, the threat of water shortages looms larger for more of the world’s population. “[This] is symptomatic of a population directly impacted by – as opposed to increasingly informed about – climate change,” said Richard Cope, Senior Trends Consultant at Mintel Consulting.?

With the proportion of consumers who believe that their country is suffering from climate change now in the majority (51%), the hope is that this marks a tipping point. Perhaps we are entering a new era, in which environmental concerns have become a matter of self-preservation and no longer someone else’s problem.?

Broken plates and hungry homes?

The Trussell Trust has released a new Hunger in the UK report , which found that:?

• 14% of all UK adults (or their households) have experienced food insecurity in the?
• 12 months to mid-2022, an estimated 11.3 million people. Experiencing food insecurity means that – at some point over this period – they have run out of food and been unable to afford more, and/or reduced meal size, eaten less, gone hungry or lost weight due to lack of money.??
• 7% of UK households (5.7 million people) accessed support from an ecosystem of food aid across the UK, such as receiving support from a food bank or accessing low-cost food aid from a social supermarket.?
• However, more than two-thirds of those experiencing food insecurity have not received food aid. While public attention often focuses on food banks, the report emphasises that this is merely “the tip of a much deeper iceberg of hunger in the UK”.?

Meanwhile, The Food Foundation’s The Broken Plate report highlights the myriad ways in which the current food system is not serving us well. This showed stark income-dependent discrepancies when it comes to consumer access to healthy food options, and the harsh consequences on the most deprived members of our society. Here are just a few of the figures that hit hardest:?

• The most deprived fifth of the population would need to spend 50% of their disposable income on food to meet the cost of the government’s recommended healthy diet. This compares to just 11% for the least deprived.?
• More sustainable plant-based alternatives to chicken are approximately 27% more expensive than chicken breast.?
• The most deprived fifth of adults consume less fruit and veg (37% less), oily fish (54% less) and dietary fibre (17% less) than the least deprived fifth.?
• Children in the most deprived fifth of the population are more than twice as likely to be living with obesity as those in the least deprived fifth by their first year of school.?
• Healthy life expectancy across 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.?

As the report says, “This is not a result of individual failure – not a lack of will power nor a shortage of knowledge – but rather the consequence of a food system which traps us into eating in a way that is harmful to our health and harmful to our planet. For people with limited time and money, breaking free from this trap is an even greater challenge.”?

This cannot continue. The public dialogue that posits healthiness as an individual choice is not taking into account the enormous discrepancies in who can actually afford to make healthier choices, and creates a culture of blame. We need a much stronger government focus on making sure that everyone is not just fed, but fed well, with healthy and nutritious options available to all, regardless of income level. Hospitality has its role to play in this; we need to see healthier options being made available from takeaways and casual dining establishments.?

Slow Food fights the good fight?

As the European Commission is finalises its proposal on the revision of the EU Animal Welfare legislation (expected in September 2023), Slow Food has published a new policy brief outlining various opportunities to safeguard farmed animals’ rights and setting out political demands to ensure their health and well-being.?

“We call on EU institutions to adopt a One Welfare approach which recognises that animal welfare, biodiversity and the environment are connected to human well-being, and vice-versa”, said Ottavia Pieretto, Protein Transition Project Coordinator at Slow Food.?

The widespread adoption of industrial animal farming as the dominant production model – focused on selective breeding for fast growth and high yields – has unquestionably led to the mistreatment of millions of farm animals across the EU. In addition to animal welfare concerns, EU livestock farms are responsible for 43% of all methane emissions and 43% of ammonia emissions , and contribute to biodiversity loss and growing antibiotic resistance in humans.?

While factory farming lobbies have put pressure on EU policymakers to keep the status quo, Slow Food are calling on EU institutions to hold their ground when it comes to making legislative change towards sustainable agriculture.?

The transition to more respectful farming must include a transformation of our food system towards agroecological farming, where farmed animals are included as part of extensive, circular and mixed farming models, but also a transition towards a more plant-based diet to keep the food system within planetary boundaries and promote health.?

While EU legislation around the protection of farmed animals currently covers the steps of production from farming to transport and slaughter, many specific areas remain unaddresses, including long-distance animal transport, labelling, the well-being of dairy cows, farmed fish and the use of antibiotics.?

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Diversity still a problem in UK hospitality?

Released this week, the third annual Be Inclusive Hospitality report captured responses from 3,120 people working at all levels of the hospitality industry across the UK, with views and experiences that include all backgrounds, genders, ages, jobs and lengths of service.??

On the whole, the report reflects a dire need for us to do better. Our industry is built on people, and things like diversity and equity, work-life balance, zero tolerance for bullying and harassment and reasonable compensation must become a new ‘normal’. Here is a brief summary of some of the more concerning findings, but we recommend anyone who holds a position of power in the industry reads the full report.?

• White respondents are most likely to hold managerial positions, earn the most and occupy full-time employment than any other ethnic group.??
• A significant portion of respondents (32.1%) do not know if their company has a written Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) statement. White people were less likely to know.?
• Overall, respondents have optimistic perceptions of progress made over the last 12 months on Equity, Diversity & Inclusion. However, Black, Asian and Mixed respondents felt that the least progress has been made on race and disability, in contrast to White respondents who believe that the least progress has been made on disability and age.??
• One in three respondents have witnessed and experienced discriminatory behaviour at work. When it comes to personal experiences, 14.8% of respondents have personally experienced discriminatory behaviour linked to gender bias, and 13.5% personally experienced discrimination as a result of race.?
• Of the respondents who reported experiencing discrimination in their workplace, 15.2% stated that these experiences had a detrimental impact on their professional advancement.??
• Discrimination remains under-reported. Of the respondents who encountered discriminatory behaviour in their workplace 47.6% did not have the opportunity to report these incidents to a senior member of staff within their organisation.??
• A considerable 40% of respondents have low levels of confidence in the company’s ability to address discrimination in the workplace; this is especially the case for ethnic minorities.??
• The survey revealed that 25.3% of respondents feel let down by their employers and industry bodies in terms of support for career progression. This sentiment was particularly strong among respondents with more years of experience in the industry.?

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Lab-grown meat a reality for the US?

The US Department of Agriculture and the FDA have given the green light to two companies, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat, to sell their products in the US. In contrast to plant-based meat alternatives like Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger, these products are created from stem cells taken from the muscle and skin of live animals. The meat is then cultivated in a bioreactor, a process which emulates conditions in an animal’s body and feeds the cells nutrients in order to “grow” the meat.?

The news has – predictably – had a wide range of passionate reactions. In an interview with The New York Post, nutritionist and food writer Diana Rodgers said, “I’d rather eat my shoe”. She observed that lab-grown meat comes with an incredibly high price tag, making it inaccessible for many, and also pointed to a lack of available nutritional information for this sort of product.?

A spokesperson for GOOD Meat said that the cultivated chicken is “high in protein, including essential amino acids. It is also high in B vitamins and is produced in an antibiotic-free environment. The specific nutrition profile varies for each of our consumer products. We use unmodified (non-GMO) chicken cells, which occur naturally in animals. Our manufacturing process doesn’t use antibiotics either.”?

While this approach to meat production may reduce animal suffering, Rodgers was also quick to point out that it’s not necessarily the right move when it comes to sustainability. “They’re taking mono-crop plant sources, taking them into a factory and using high-energy processes to convert them into meat,” said Rodgers. Indeed, while investors and stakeholders are quick to extoll the virtues of lab-grown meat, one study from UC Davis found that, on the whole, these energy-intense processes are likely to have an environmental impact that is “orders of magnitude” higher than that of regular beef, based on current and near-term production methods.?

We’ll stick to the legumes for now…?

Positive food trends predicted?

We’ll end on a positive note! In reading the 2023/24 UK Hospitality Food and Drink Trends to Watch from Egg Soldiers, we were pleased to note two predicted trends that lie very close to our hearts: more zero waste menus – driven by both sustainability and the rising costs of raw ingredients – and an increased focus on community.?

As Co-Founder of Egg Soldiers Toph Ford said, "UK restaurants should explore partnerships with community-orientated food leaders and pioneers to host regular events that showcase local artisans, producers and suppliers. Regular helpings of community positivity can only broaden your fanbase, not to mention your restaurant horizons, with pop-ups and workshops valuable revenue streams amid the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis."?

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