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Thu 24th Oct 2024 - House of Lords calls for junk food tax and advertising ban, plus more powers to curb rise of takeaways selling ‘less healthy food’ |
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House of Lords calls for junk food tax and advertising ban, plus more powers to curb rise of takeaways selling ‘less healthy food’: A House of Lords report into the UK’s obesity “public health emergency” has called for a ban on junk food advertising and a tax on firms that put too much sugar and salt into food. The Food, Diet and Obesity Committee also wants to give local authorities more powers to curb the rise of takeaways that “rely on sales of less healthy food”. Appointed by the House of Lords in January, the committee’s subsequent report – Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system – sets out a series of recommendations to set out a plan to “fix” our “broken” food system. In a section headed ‘healthier high streets, the report said that “restricting the promotion of less healthy food and drink has the potential to make sales and consumption patterns healthier” but that “implementation of the ban on location promotions has been patchy at best”. While welcoming the government’s “commitment to give local authorities more powers to block the development of fast-food outlets”, it said the government must take six steps to ensure healthier high streets. These include swiftly introduce measures to give local authorities more planning and licensing powers to protect public health and reduce the proliferation of businesses that rely on sales of less healthy food and bringing forward a planned review of restrictions on retail location promotions – ensuring loopholes are closed and local authorities are adequately resourced to enforce the ban by the end of 2025. It said the government must also implement the ban on high fat sugar or salt (HFSS) volume price promotions no later than 1 October 2025 and restrict other forms of HFSS price promotion in retail settings (including ‘meal deals’). It also wants to ban location and price promotions of HFSS food and drink by out-of- home businesses with more than 50 employees – plus smaller out-of-home businesses and franchise premises if practicable. Furthermore, it said the government must ban location and price promotions of HFSS food and drink across online delivery platforms and aggregators; act swiftly to ban the use of brand and licensed characters, cartoons and nutrition and health claims on the packaging of HFSS food and drink; and ban these forms of promotion of HFSS products in retail and the out-of-home sectors as soon as possible. For the wider food industry, the report called for a new overarching legislative framework with an integrated long-term food strategy, overseen by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and independent of industry. It called for a decisive shift away from voluntary measures to a system of mandatory regulation, with businesses that derive more than a proportion of sales (to be defined by the FSA) from less healthy products excluded from any discussions on the formation of such policies. The report said large food businesses must be held to account for selling unhealthy food and drink, and the government should make targets, with dates, for reduction of salt, sugar and calories mandatory for large businesses. It also wants to see Downing Street announce an intention to introduce a salt and sugar reformulation tax and apply it as soon as possible (within two years at most) and introduce measures to make healthier food more affordable. The report said: “Our food system is broken. The objective of this report is to set out a plan to fix it so we can all eat better diets and therefore live healthier lives. Obesity and diet-related disease are a public health emergency. England has one of the highest rates of obesity among high-income nations. In recent decades, unhealthy, often highly processed foods have become widely accessible, heavily marketed and often cheaper than healthier alternatives. There has been an utter failure to tackle this crisis. It has been found that between 1992 and 2020, successive governments proposed nearly 700 wide-ranging policies to tackle obesity in England, to minimal effect. At the heart of this failure has been a misplaced focus on individual responsibility. In large part because of misguided fears of the ‘nanny state’, policies have relied on personal choice rather than tackling the underlying drivers of unhealthy diets. This approach has not worked, as the rise in obesity demonstrates. At worst, it risks widening health inequalities and worsening the stigma often suffered by people living with obesity. Ending this emergency could take decades and demands sustained focus and action. At the heart of this strategy must be a radically new approach to the food industry. Large food businesses will adapt to resist the effects of regulation and protect shareholder profits. To reduce the risk that interventions will fail or backfire, regulation should encompass all parts of the food industry. The government needs to hold to account businesses that rely on sales of unhealthy food. Though welcome, the upcoming bans on junk food advertising online and on television before the 9pm watershed do not go far enough. There needs to be a total ban across all media by the end of this Parliament on advertising both of HFSS food and drink and by businesses that fail to reach healthy sales targets. To help inform the public and incentivise reformulation, mandatory nutrition labelling clearly identifying healthier and less healthy products should be introduced. Turning the tide and ending this emergency is a huge challenge, but it is not insuperable.”
Next Who’s Who of UK Hospitality to be released tomorrow featuring 873 companies: The next Who’s Who of UK Hospitality will be released to Premium Club members tomorrow (Friday, 25 October), at midday. Another 20 companies have been added to the database, which now features 873 companies. This month’s edition will also include 101 updated entries and more than 236,000 words of content. The companies, listed in alphabetical order, will have their most recent results reported as well as broader information around Ebitda, plans and trading style available. The database merges Companies House information, interviews and other public information to provide an easy to reference and exhaustive guide to the sector. Premium Club members also receive access to five other databases: the Multi-Site Database, the New Openings Database, the Turnover & Profits Blue Book, the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database and the UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database. All Premium Clubs members will be offered a 20% discount on tickets to Propel paid-for events including Restaurant Marketer and Innovator (two days in January 2025) and Excellence in Pub Retail (May 2025). Operators that are Premium Club members are also able to send up to four members of staff to each of our four Multi-Club Conferences for free. Premium Club members receive their daily Propel Info newsletter 11 hours earlier than standard subscribers, at 7pm the evening before. They also receive videos of presentations at eight Propel conference events two weeks after they are held. This represents around 100 videos of industry insight over the course of the year. Premium Club members will be sent a dedicated monthly newsletter that will highlight key updates in the sector and direct subscribers to all the vital content their membership offers. Premium Club members also receive exclusive opinion columns every Friday at 5pm, which include the thoughts of Propel group editor Mark Wingett and a host of industry leaders from across the sector. A Premium Club subscription costs an annual sum of £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Premium Club for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or supplier. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com today to sign up.
Wimpy UK ‘impacted by lower footfall and economic uncertainty’ as turnover drops 17%: Famous Brands has said lower footfall and economic uncertainties have affected its UK Wimpy business as it reported revenue for the division fell 17% during the six months ended 31 August 2024. Its revenue dropped to £2,996,656 (69 million rand) from £3,604,723 (83 million rand) in the same period last year. Operating profit was down 68% from £434,421 (10 million rand) to £130,338 (3 million rand). Operating profit margin was down from 24% to 4.6%. The company said its UK market had been “impacted by lower footfall and economic uncertainty”. It said going forwards, it will have a “relentless focus on marketing quality” and “menu price points and product ranges to meet consumer wallet”. It also said it would avoid marginal sites, focus on sustainable franchising and make chicken more prevalent on its menus. At the period end, 62 of the company’s 2,925 across 18 counties (2,839 franchised) were in the UK. NTIA – nightclubs could ‘vanish completely’ by the end of this decade: The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has warned that nightclubs could “vanish completely” by the end of this decade. It said the UK has lost 37% of clubs since March 2020, at a rate of three per week and more than 150 per year. And, if the current rate of club closures continues, it said December 31, 2029 will mark the end of an era – or what the NTIA is calling ‘The Last Night Out’. The pressure group has partnered with creative design agency McCann London for a poster campaign to raise awareness of continued nightclub closures, while launching a petition challenging the government to grant nightclubs targeted financial support and culturally protected status. NTIA chief executive Michael Kill said: “We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the night-time economy. Our industry is not just about entertainment; it’s about identity, community, and the economy. The loss of our venues means the loss of jobs, culture, and a vital part of the UK’s social fabric. Without urgent intervention, December 31, 2029, will be the last night out, and the end of a clubbing era that has defined generations.” Sacha Lord, night time economy advisor for Greater Manchester, added: “The night-time economy has been an integral part of our cultural and economic history. It’s more than just a night out; it’s where friendships are forged, creativity flourishes, and local economies thrive. The current trajectory spells disaster not only for the businesses themselves but for the communities they serve. We cannot afford to lose these spaces, they are the lifeblood of our cities.” MUP made no ‘significant’ difference to heavy drinkers in Scotland: Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) made no ‘significant’ difference to heavy drinkers – except they paid £24 a week more for their alcohol after the policy came into force. A study of hundreds of Scots using drug and alcohol treatment services found the SNP’s policy had no significant effects of on their alcohol consumption or health. The only notable difference before and after the policy was introduced was that they were spending far more on alcohol, reports The Daily Mail. Researchers surveyed Scots and English drinkers receiving treatment for alcohol dependency both before and after MUP came into force. There has been concerns it hits responsible drinkers while failing to tackle the booze death toll. The survey findings come after the latest hike earlier this month, pushing the minimum price of alcohol from 50p to 65p a unit. Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “Contrary to SNP claims, MUP is not the silver bullet to tackle problem drinking. Alcohol-related deaths are at their highest levels since 2008, yet instead of admitting that MUP is failing, the SNP have doubled down on their flawed policy and hiked prices which will lead to people skipping meals to afford booze.” Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at think-tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “The truth is, minimum pricing has been a fiasco.” But a Scottish government spokesman said: “MUP has saved hundreds of lives.” Britain’s biggest attraction becoming ‘a rip off’: Some of Britain’s biggest attraction are becoming “a rip off”, according to a new report in The Telegraph. It said according to research conducted by TicketLens, prices at London’s tourist attractions have risen by an average of 24.3% since 2019, while Edinburgh’s are up 47%. Aross the UK, the average rise was 29.4%, the newspaper said. English Heritage increased membership fees by 4.5% in March, a month after the National Trust’s annual membership rose by 8.5% from £84 to £91.20. An English Heritage spokesman said: “Just maintaining all these irreplaceable buildings, monuments and their collections costs tens of millions of pounds a year.” The price of individual tickets to its sites, he said, has increased by an average of 4% since last year. Covid didn’t help either, with Portsmouth’s National Museum of the Royal Navy saying it faced a £6.35m funding gap because of closures caused by and during the pandemic. A Historic Royal Palaces spokesperson said while the rise in ticket prices at the Tower of London correlated with the introduction of new experiences and exhibitions, they too had experienced post-pandemic financial struggles, adding: “Recent inflation has meant we have been facing increasing costs.” Andy Hall, communications and public affairs manager for the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA), said: “Saving species from extinction can be costly, and years of inflation has driven up costs even further. Zoos and aquariums have more fixed costs than other organisations as providing the highest quality of care can mean expensive life-support systems, temperature controls and specialised diets.” This spring, Merlin Entertainments, which owns Legoland and Alton Towers as well as Sea Life London Aquarium, introduced surge pricing. However, the report noted that The Tower of London has introduced a £1 ticket scheme for people in receipt of means-tested benefits, while London Zoo launched £3 tickets for those on universal credit and Edinburgh Zoo has £7 tickets available to those in the same situation. A smattering of attractions have also become cheaper, with an adult ticket to Madame Tussauds costing from £29 (if booked early and online) whereas in 2019 it would have set you back £31. Bernard Donoghue OBE, director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. “Attractions that charge for entry have broadly put their prices up by the rate of inflation for several years in order to cover the increasing costs of supplies, maintenance, energy and staffing. More and more are also responding to the cost-of-living challenges which consumers face by offering free or very heavily reduced priced tickets for people on benefits. It should also be remembered that many national as well as local museums and galleries are free to enter; in fact, the UK has the highest number of free museums and galleries in Europe.”
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