Abstract/Summary

What we eat is shaped by, and simultaneously shapes, the world in which we live. It is estimated that food system activities account for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of freshwater use and a third of biodiversity loss (Crippa et al., 2021; United Nations, 2023a). Meanwhile, around three billion people cannot afford to purchase and consume a healthy diet (United Nations, 2023a), and poor diet is estimated to be a cause of 22% of adult deaths globally, particularly due to increasing levels of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (Afshin et al., 2019). In 2015, UN Sustainability Goals were introduced to align governments and mitigate urgent global environmental, political and economic challenges (UN, 2015). The goals centre around ending hunger, promoting wellbeing, reducing the threat of climate change and managing natural resources. However, the current food system, driven by economic and political interests, is not moving to meet these goals (Béné, 2022; UNDP,2023b). The Transforming UK Food Systems (TUKFS) Programme was established in 2020 to provide and assess evidence to tackle food system challenges through a UK lens, supported through a major investment (£47.5 million) by UKRI’s Strategic Priorities Fund. With an ethos of co-production across 16 research projects and a Centre for Doctoral Training, the Programme involves 37 UK academic and research institutions and over 200 organisations from farmers and agricultural organisations, major food retailers and food industry bodies, national and local government actors, as well as charities and consumer groups. Research undertaken within the programme is addressing questions related to what we should eat, produce, manufacture, and import, while considering the complex interactions between health, the environment, and economic factors. These endeavours have generated a large body of data and evidence, much of which has been drawn together in a special edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Poppy et al., 2025). Comprising 12 original research papers describing the results of projects supported by TUKFS, this volume provides an integrated view of the UK food system and presents practical, workable solutions to re-orientate the system to promote long-term, sustainable food-system transformation. In this news and views article, we highlight some of these findings from a nutrition perspective.