Healthy, Sustainable Food Remains Out Of Reach For UK Households

The UK food system remains unhealthy, unsustainable, and unfair, according to the Food Foundation, and the reliance on voluntary market-led change is not delivering the scale of shift needed for the public to eat well as everyday food environments continue to promote unhealthy options.

The independent charity’s 2025 State of the Nation’s Food Industry report argues that the government cannot continue to leave progress on healthy and sustainable sales to the market.

To fix the UK’s food system, the Food Foundation is calling for stronger, clearer mandatory frameworks on marketing, product composition, reporting, and lobbying transparency to push companies towards targets.

In its benchmark assessment of how 37 leading UK‑operating food retailers, out‑of‑home chains, manufacturers, and wholesalers are contributing to (or undermining) a healthy, sustainable and equitable food system, the flagship report finds that healthy, sustainable food remains out of reach for many UK households. 

Examples include how almost seven in ten train‑station outlets surveyed have no fruit on offer, while the vast majority have no vegetable‑based snacks either. 

The report also notes how healthier food choices remain more expensive, citing the example of healthy children’s lunchbox items which cost markedly more than less healthy equivalents.

Meanwhile, the food industry is finding new ways to advertise unhealthy food to young people. 

Since the January 2026 ban on TV and online adverts for food and drink that are high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS), food industry giants have shifted to other forms of advertising, thereby undermining efforts to protect young people from their influence.

The 2025 report also concludes that commercial organisations continue to exert disproportionate influence on policymaking, which is weakening ambition on regulation and reform. 

“We cannot continue to leave progress on healthy and sustainable sales to the market. It’s simply not working,” stated Rebecca Tobi, Head of Food Business Transformation at The Food Foundation. 

“For too long there has been no long-term vision for the UK’s food system with a striking lack of commercial incentives for businesses to produce and sell us good food. We hope the government will introduce a new Food Bill to set out a clear direction of travel for the future of the UK’s food system and ensure better health and a liveable planet for the next generation lies at the heart of this.” 

Baroness Walmsley, Chair of the 2024 House of Lords Food Diet and Obesity Committee, said “significantly more intervention” from the government is needed to tackle obesity and other food-related health issues in the UK.

“A Good Food Bill is needed to set the direction for policy going forward so we can shift the food system in the long term, and ensure it does a much better job at supporting us all to eat well,” Baroness Walmsley explained.

Key Findings

• Some 69% of train station food outlets visited offered no fruit at all and 85% had no vegetable snacks. Less healthy snacks were much more readily available than fruit and vegetables.

• On average, a week’s worth of healthy lunchbox items for children from UK supermarkets costs 26% more than a week’s worth of unhealthy lunchbox items.

• None of the 16 Out of Home businesses assessed has a sales-based target for increasing sales of healthy food, compared with all 11 of the UK’s major supermarkets who have a target or commitment. 

• Just eight (22%) businesses have a sales-based target and disclose data for fruit and veg. A further three (8%) businesses disclose data on sales of fruit and veg but lack a target.

• Just 6% of ready meals and 7% of restaurant menu options contain pulses.

• Restaurants, pubs, and bars have the most calorific menus in the Out of Home sector, with dishes averaging 726 calories.

• Outdoor advertising spend by food companies increased by 28% between 2021 and 2024 which followed the government’s announcement in July 2020 of a forthcoming ban on TV and online advertising.

• McDonald’s is the worst offender and increased outdoor advertising spend by 71% between 2021 and 2024.

• Over two thirds (71%) of food marketing cues on the world’s most popular videogame livestreaming platform are for unhealthy (HFSS) food and drinks, with 77% of branded cues for energy drinks and soft drinks, and 20% for the fast food sector.

• Approximately 39% of these food and drink cues featured brands rather than identifiable products and would therefore be out of scope of the forthcoming regulations.

• Corporate lobbying is rife, with 10 times as many food industry meetings with ministers than NGOs in the first year of the new Government.

Read the full report here.

Watch a webinar with an expert panel analysis of the report's key findings here.