At IFE 2025, Dr Dolly van Tulleken delivered a passionate and incisive keynote on one of the UK’s most pressing challenges: food-related ill health. Speaking to a packed audience of food and drink professionals, she unpacked the systemic failures of public health policy over the last three decades and offered a clear call to action.

Drawing on insights from her recent report, Nourishing Britain, co-authored with Henry Dimbleby, and supported by extensive interviews with senior politicians, Dr van Tulleken highlighted how political dysfunction, not lack of knowledge, is the primary barrier to improving the nation’s diet.

Here are six key takeaways for industry professionals to consider.

1. Policy has not failed for lack of ideas, but for lack of implementation

Dr van Tulleken began by setting the context. Over the past thirty years, successive UK governments have published 14 national strategies to tackle obesity and food-related ill health, proposing close to 700 individual policy actions. Yet these efforts have not led to meaningful improvements in public health outcomes. Obesity levels remain high, and health inequalities have widened.

The problem, she explained, is not the absence of solutions but a chronic failure to act on them. Many of the policies never get progressed beyond the page. Others relied heavily on individuals making better choices, without addressing the structural conditions that make healthy eating unaffordable or inaccessible to many. For food businesses, this raises the question of how products and practices contribute to or help alleviate those structural barriers.

2. Political instability has derailed momentum

Momentum behind meaningful policy change gathered briefly in 2020 when Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched a major obesity strategy following his own COVID-19 hospitalisation. However, political turbulence soon set in. Between 2022 and 2024, the UK had four Prime Ministers. Promising reforms such as bans on junk food advertising and restrictions on unhealthy promotions were either delayed, diluted or dropped entirely.

Dr van Tulleken described this pattern as a vicious cycle in which promising ideas are routinely lost to ministerial reshuffles, shifting political priorities and short-term calculations. For industry leaders trying to plan for the future, this instability creates uncertainty and restricts their ability to plan for and invest in longterm initiatives.

3. Four core political challenges stand in the way of progress

The Nourishing Britain project, which involved interviews with 20 senior political figures from the last three decades, identified four main reasons why food policy struggles to gain traction in government.

First, politicians are wary of being labelled part of the ‘nanny state’. Measures to shape diets are often attacked in the media and in Westminster as interfering with personal freedoms, despite consistent public support for healthier food environments and support for policy and regulation in this area

Second, there is a deep tension between supporting industry and regulating it. Policymakers often fear that new regulations will damage business competitiveness, provoke lobbying backlash or trigger job losses, even when long-term health gains are clear. Many politicians also fear that regulation could be seen as stifling British business.

Third, food policy rarely reaches the top of the political agenda. With limited time, political capital is typically spent elsewhere, often on acute NHS pressures rather than longer-term public health prevention.

Fourth, responsibility for food is fragmented across departments, making coordination extremely difficult. From DEFRA to DHSC to the Treasury, policy on food production, health and commerce is siloed, leading to slow progress and missed opportunities , with each department having very different approaches, perspectives and vested interests when it comes to potential policy shifts

4. Successful policy requires political creativity and strategic design

One of the few bright spots in recent food policy was the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. According to Dr van Tulleken, its success can be attributed to how it was designed and delivered. Then-Chancellor George Osborne developed the policy in secret, allowing his team to shape it without early external interference. Once announced, it was backed with evidence, public engagement and the visible support of campaigners such as Jamie Oliver, whom Osborne personally telephoned.

The result was a well-calibrated levy that encouraged reformulation, raised public awareness and avoided significant industry backlash. For businesses, the soft drinks levy demonstrates how clear frameworks and smart policy (and perhaps avoiding the involvement of too many departments and stakeholders early on) can lead to constructive outcomes that benefit both public health and commercial sustainability.

5. The food industry must be a key driver of progress

Although Nourishing Britain was created as a political manual, Dr van Tulleken was clear that the food industry has a vital role to play. She challenged attendees to consider the nature of the food they produce and sell. Is it nourishing? Would our grandmothers recognise it as food? Does it exist primarily to maximise shareholder returns rather than to serve nutritional needs?

She also pointed to the highly financialised structure of many global food businesses, where cost-cutting, tax avoidance and aggressive lobbying may take precedence over health outcomes. Dr van Tulleken acknowledged the dilemma many responsible businesses face: the desire to innovate is often hampered by a lack of mandatory standards that would ensure a level playing field. This is where industry can lead, she argued, by publicly supportingcarefully designed regulation that rewards companies committed to health and sustainability.

6. Public pressure is lacking, but essential

One of the clearest messages from the politician interviews was the absence of public demand for action. While most people support healthier food environments in principle, few contact their MPs or vote with this issue in mind. As a result, politicians do not feel significant pressure to prioritise food policy.

Dr van Tulleken stressed the need for a public movement that mirrors successful campaigns in countries like Finland and Japan, where food is considered a national asset. A groundswell of support could give both politicians and businesses the mandate to act boldly. For companies looking to build trust and align with consumer values, engaging in and responding to these movements could be a powerful way to lead from the front.

A call to industry

Dr van Tulleken closed with a challenge. Just as she urged politicians not to leave office with regrets, she encouraged industry professionals to reflect on their legacy. With food-related ill health costing lives and placing enormous strain on the NHS, doing more is no longer optional.

The choices made by the food and drink sector today will shape not only future public health but the sector’s long-term social license to operate. The question she left hanging was not just how to nourish Britain, but how to transform the food system into one where nourishment and profit can coexist.

To read the full Nourishing Britian report, and to access full transcripts of the project's interviewees, visit nesta.org.uk/report/nourishing-britain.