Publications Round-up October to December 2025
Explore the Centre for Food Policy’s publications from the fourth quarter of 2025.
‘The association between adolescents’ independent food purchasing and dietary quality differs by socioeconomic status: Findings from a pilot study,’ co-authored by Professor Christina Vogel, September 2025.
During adolescence, many young people start to make more independent food purchases. Subsequently, these independent food choices will increasingly contribute to their overall diet quality; little is known, however, about this relationship. This pilot study aimed to examine the role adolescents’ independent food purchases play in their diet quality and assess if these relationships vary according to socio-economic status.
‘Key action areas for transforming the UK food system: insights from the Transforming UK Food Systems (TUKFS) Programme project portfolio‘ co-authored by Dr Christian Reynolds, Dr Christopher Yap and Dr Rebecca Wells, part of TUKFS programme, September 2025
The UK food system is a driver of the public health crisis of non-communicable disease, is linked to the cost-of-living crisis, and contributes to climate change, biodiversity loss and soil degradation. The economy relies strongly on the health of its people and food businesses, while also impacting the livelihoods of food system actors. However, action towards more resilient, equitable and regenerative food systems remains too slow and unambitious to adequately address these challenges. The Transforming UK Food Systems Programme comprises a wide range of research projects which address these challenges in a novel place-based, co-produced and action-oriented way. We provide 27 suggested action areas for supporting food system transformation, grouped in five themes spanning production, manufacturing, supply chain and consumption. Among the suggestions, there is a strong emphasis on the importance of co-production with food system actors and affected citizens. We highlight the vital role of governance and policy in supporting these action areas in both a structural and financial way, noting that this needs both national policy and regional approaches to take into account geographically varying cultural circumstances and values, and to allow the high level of co-production necessary.
‘Urban vertical farming: innovation for food security and social impact?’, co-authored by Dr Christopher Yap, part of TUKFS programme, September 2025
Urban vertical farming (VF) has emerged as a potential solution to improve food security and safety for urban populations, as well as to transform wider food systems (FS) to ensure greater sustainability. Existing literature has highlighted both direct and indirect benefits from VF to individuals and communities through novel technology alongside social entrepreneurial innovation. These include the creation of green jobs, and greater access to fresh, healthy food produced locally, as well as community development programmes and avenues for civic participation. We explore relevant literature to critically examine the socio-economic impact of VF, drawing out key issues of debate, while identifying areas of future research and recommendations for practice. We draw attention to critical accounts that have highlighted a need to consider the role of technology within social and political processes. Studies have noted key challenges to VF in achieving social and economic benefits to urban populations, as well as in contributing to food security. Examining VF as an intervention within a wider political economy enables a more rigorous exploration of social impact. A research, policy and practice focus beyond production and business model design is needed to situate VF within broader efforts to transform FS.
‘The Centre for Food Policy’s submission to the DHSC consultation on proposed regulation to ban the sales of energy drinks to children,’ co-authored by Dr Olivia Brown, Professor Christina Vogel, Dr Preeti Dhuria, Dr Sophie Clohessy, and Professor Mary Barker, November 2025.
Submission from Centre for Food Policy, City St Georges, University of London and University of Southampton.
‘Operationalising sustainability in professional kitchens: The interplay of chef competencies, environmental values and human resource management strategies‘, Andrea Zick Ximena Schmidt, and Dr Christian Reynolds, November 2025
Food waste reduction and lowering greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) of diets are key focus areas of the food systems transition. Inspired by the ecological systems theory, this exploratory study assesses how chefs’ competencies, environmental values, human resource management (HRM) practices interact in a microsystem to reduce food waste and GHGE of food offers. A participant selection framework was developed to explore four perspectives: kitchen, sustainability, industry support and catering education. Twenty-three stakeholders, 9 (39 %) chefs, 6 (26 %) industry stakeholders, 5 (22 %) chef educators and 3 (13 %) sustainability professionals in the sector were interviewed. While the study set out to examine the role of HRM in shaping environmental kitchen practices, the findings suggest that HRM does not directly influence behaviours related to food waste and GHGE reduction. Instead, kitchen leadership, as part of the microsystem, where daily interactions and operational decisions occur, emerges as a potentially more influential factor. Within this immediate environment, daily interactions and skill application, such as culinary techniques, product knowledge, logistics, creativity, and innovation, play a central role in shaping sustainable practices. These competencies not only support operational efficiency but also foster entrepreneurial thinking. While broader societal discourse reflects a macrosystem shift in environmental attitudes, the study stresses the need to translate this awareness into applied skills within the microsystem, where behaviour change is most effectively enacted.
‘Mapping how responsibility for poor diets is framed in the United Kingdom: a scoping review‘, co-authored by Professor Christina Vogel, November 2025
The framing of responsibility for poor diets in the UK centred on the individual, obscuring the powerful influence of food manufacturers and retailers and the role of government in providing safe, healthy environments for all. This review highlights the urgent need to challenge this narrative, with the public health nutrition community working collectively to force a radical shift in public, media and policy framing and incite strong regulatory action by governments.
‘Making household food waste reduction easier‘, Professor Katy Tapper, Dr Bethan Thompson, Dr Christian Reynolds & Dr Luiza Toma, November 2025
Households waste huge amounts of food, which leads to considerable financial costs for individuals and substantial contributions to CO2 emissions. But this is a complex problem to address. In this Comment, Tapper and colleagues discuss how behavioural and systems science can help to provide solutions.
‘Estimating the environmental impact of diets based on individual-level dietary intake data: infographics on the FAO/WHO GIFT platform‘, co-authored by Dr Christian Reynolds, December 2025
Integrating environmental impacts into dietary assessment is crucial to promote healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Nonetheless, the environmental impacts of individual dietary intake are rarely reported. This paper describes how environmental impacts are integrated into dietary data through the FAO/WHO Global Individual Food Consumption Data Tool (FAO/WHO GIFT). The environmental infographics available on FAO/WHO GIFT offer a user-friendly interface to understand the average footprint of diets, identifying contributing food groups, and exploring variations in environmental impacts. The infographics present estimates for three environmental indicators – greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and land use of dietary intake, allowing users to assess the environmental implications of different diets. Tools to monitor and assess dietary environmental impact, such as those offered by FAO/WHO GIFT, are essential for informing transformation towards healthy diets from sustainable food systems.
