City Research Online

Abstract

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.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Publisher Keywords:	food system, regenerative agriculture, food manufacturing, food environment, food community, food policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Global, Public & Population Health & Policy School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Global, Public & Population Health & Policy > Food Policy
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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