Key Interview: Food Matters Live 2015 “Removal or Banning of Popular Characters on Unsuitable Foods is a Must”

24 Nov 2015 --- Chris Bavin, owner of The Naked Grocer, fruit and vegetable importer and presenter of BBC’s Eat Well For Less and Tomorrow’s Food, spoke to NutritionInsight after the preventing childhood obesity debate at Food Matters Live 2015. Chris has won an award for his independent greengrocers retailer and is a fierce advocate of bringing back local shops to the high street. He is also an influential voice for the British public, speaking out regularly in the press and at food forums on which direction he believes the food industry should move in for a healthier society.

Nutrition Insight asked him his thoughts on tackling the obesity crisis: he believes action is needed in lots of areas and that it is crucial to start with central government. He believes that “food manufacturers and producers would welcome legislation setting a standard maximum on salt fat and sugar as this would give everyone a completely fair playing field. At the moment some producers are responsible who are being penalised by meeting quotas whereas others aren’t. There needs to be an even playing field.”

He also has strong views on packaging and targeting kids directly; “if it’s necessary to have plain packaging on something only adults can buy – such as tobacco – then surely it’s crucial for products which target kids. The fact that we market at children anyway is disgraceful.”

“If a product has unsuitable or unsafe levels of sugar salt and sugar it should not be allowed to be emblazoned with popular children’s characters. The pester power of kids is phenomenal so we need to try and assist parents by removing this. The removal or the banning of popular characters on unsuitable foods is a must and should as far as I’m concerned happen immediately because it’s outrageous.”

He believes that healthy checkouts are a step in the right direction – although many items have been replaced with concentrated fruit snacks which actually contain more sugar than some chocolate snacks, it’s important to remember that the food industry and retailers are primarily there to make a profit. “Again, the onus needs to come from government to all adhere to a single policy and that has to be key. I don’t think we should admonish producers for taking small steps. This journey is going to be about lots of small steps in the right direction and healthy checkouts are one of them.”

Would he like to see something more happen from industry from an innovation standpoint in terms of sugar reduction techniques? “The industry is very innovative anyway and continually looking at what’s next. I don’t know whether there needs to be further development, people are already investing heavily in finding a safe alternative to sugar, salt and fat and I’d be very surprised if everything is not being done already. The question is why are they doing it? Is it because they think it’s responsible or because they are being forced to?”

“Regulation needs to come from the bottom and the top. If consumers stop buying unhealthy products, then the manufacturers will stop making them, it’s as simple as that.”

He says that a sugar tax is step in the right direction on the one hand and will raise awareness but that it won’t work on its own. Then again, “nothing will.”

As part of Tomorrow’s Food programme, BBC1 explores the future of food including a seaweed tablet which could stop the body absorbing fat, based on work at Newcastle University. The series will reveal the cutting-edge technologies and produce appearing in farms, supermarkets, kitchens and restaurants around the world, transforming how we grow, buy and eat our food.

Featured is the work of Dr Matt Wilcox on alginates extracted from seaweed. Matt guides Chris who tries out a seaweed pill on truck drivers that could stop the body from absorbing some of the fat in your diet – with astonishing results.

Alginates are already used in foods, such as stabilisers in jam and to maintain the head on a pint of beer. However, their potential as a food supplement which prevents the absorption of fat is now being explored.

Dr Wilcox has been working on adding seaweeds to everyday foods to prevent too much fat absorption from western diets.

He said: "We were surprised at the extent of the results in this test and based on this we’re going to repeat this experiment in a clinical manner. Lorry drivers were given an alginate tablet extracted from brown seaweed before each meal and they lost weight even though they were not making any effort to control their diet.

"The beauty of using alginate is that it is naturally occurring and is already used in small amounts in the food industry. We are looking at working with food producers to try and increase the levels in foods to reduce the amount of fat that we get which could help weight management."

By Coriander Stone