With up to 160 attendees, the webinar organized by the Coalition of Action for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems (HDSFS), titled Aligning policies for healthy food environments exploring the role of food retail environment for improved diets took place on the 03 of July. It was moderated  by Dr. Christina Vogel, Professor of Food Policy and Director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University London, as well as a Steering Committee member of the Coalition. 

The webinar showcased various championing country experiences in terms of policy action, focusing on a pivotal area – the role of markets in food systems transformation to promote healthy and sustainable diets. Linkages between dietary guidelines promoted by governments and markets were explored, pointing out that unhealthy food is often cheaper, more heavily marketed and more widely available to citizens than healthy and sustainable food. 

Setting the scene,  market experts in the FAO Food and Nutrition Division provided an overview on why focusing on domestic food markets  is critical to improve food environments and, overall, to transition toward sustainable food systems and  healthy diets.

As guest speaker, Jason Baillargeon, Director of the Food Policy Division at the Ministry of Agriculture, Canada, explained how his government has been able to align policies for comprehensive action at all levels, ranging from local to national, and multiple actors across the food system. 

Experiences of efforts to improve healthy food environments and implementing policies around food markets and retailers were shared by three coalition member countries representing different regions, namely Finland, Ethiopia, and Brazil. The speakers were from different ministries, providing a multi-sectoral perspective to the topic: Ms. Heli Kuusipalo, Senior Advisor at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Dr. Mulugeta Teamir Sisay, Senior Food Systems Advisor at the Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia and Dr. Claudia Tramontt, Technical Consultant at the General-Coordination of Food and Nutrition at the Ministry of Health in Brazil.

Dr. Luz Maria de Regil, Head of the Unit for multisectoral action in food systems at WHO, and Boyd Swinburne, Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health at the University of Auckland and co-lead of the International Network for Food and Obesity / Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) (INFORMAS) closed the webinar together. WHO presented a package of policies to improve food environments and limit the marketing of unhealthy food products. Dr. Swinburne highlighted highlighted that food retail is often neglected in policies and programmes intended to improve diets quality  because it is often considered as a private sector space, even if evidence shows that public institutions have a big role to play in shaping retail environments that are conducive for healthy diets. “It is crucial  that we encourage governments to be involved in retail, to protect healthy food markets and build evidence, showing policymakers that current market food environments do not make healthy foods easily affordable or the most appealing choice for consumers, thus proposing sustainable policy options.” Dr. Swinburne concluded.

For any questions or queries to the Coalition of Action for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems (HDSFS), please contact the Secretariat: hdsfscoalition@gmail.com