Assessing the Nutritional and Environmental Impacts of Major UK Food and Beverage Manufacturers

Food and beverage (F&B) manufacturers can support and/or prevent food system transitions, and will also be affected by them. However, there is limited information on the impact manufacturers currently have on food-related nutrition and environmental outcomes, and crucially their potential to reduce these impacts. Here, we develop an approach to estimate the nutrition and environmental impact per 100g of food from F&B manufacturers, applying it to 44 UK F&B manufacturers in the UK that collectively accounted for 51.5% of the UK F&B market in 2019. We find that UK F&B often have highly variable impacts on nutrition and the environment, both across manufacturers acting in the same food retail category and within a manufacturer’s existing product portfolio. We further identify how changing the type of products that F&B manufacturers sell offers potential for considerable benefits, with some manufacturers with the highest sales value (Tesco, Sainsbury’s) having amongst the largest scope to reduce their negative impacts on nutrition and environment. The majority of potential benefits are often observed when changing < 10% of a manufacturer’s product line.