Research projects, training and reports

This project is a vision for a Yorkshire food system constituting regenerative and equitable healthy eating for young children, supported by regenerative hybrid food economies and farming.

Bringing together world-class researchers from Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge and City universities, this project seeks to transform the UK food system ‘from the ground up.’

This project will develop solutions to give people living in disadvantaged communities improved access to fresher food and a balance of desirable, sustainable, affordable and healthy products.

Focusing on the city of Birmingham, the project will evaluate interventions to demonstrate how food can be made healthier, more affordable and less harmful to the environment, but still profitable.

The UKFS-CDT aims to develop the next generation of food system change makers for a healthy and sustainable food future, training over 60 interdisciplinary doctoral researchers from 2021 to 2027.

We’ll deliver a tool that generates a 15-30% reduction in the carbon footprint of meals and their sugar, fat and salt content and can be implemented without consumers being aware of the changes.

Raising the Pulse (RtP) is based on the concept that if we could make it easier for the UK population to eat more UK-grown pulses, there would be considerable health and environmental benefits.

This project aims to demonstrate the socio-economic benefit of a world-leading ‘terrestrial blue economy’, contributing multiple public goods to reform UK agriculture.

Our vision is to maximise the food potential of UK pasture by using targeted chemical processing and novel biotechnology to convert grass into nutritious edible fractions for food.

Our research will focus on the distinctive role of social enterprises, exploring and enhancing their unique contribution to food systems that are more inclusive, sustainable and healthy.

This project focuses on how cultured meat could affect farming in the UK, exploring its environmental, economic and animal welfare impact, as well as public and political attitudes.

Our project will seek a consensus on the contested role of livestock in the UK agricultural economy, balancing its market value and opportunities for innovation with less tangible contributions.

BeanMeals aims to develop and analyse systemic innovations for reducing the consumption of products high in fat, sugar and salt in institutional and home-cooking by using UK-grown navy beans.

We’ll identify what transformation in the UK wheat agri-food chain is needed to deliver high fibre white loaf bread, using a combined behavioural, food technology and predictive modelling approach.

The Sus-Health project will establish and demonstrate a blueprint of a system that incentivises both directly and indirectly the consumption of sustainable and healthy food.

We’ll co-develop and test strategies to support future potential in the food system, bringing together food insecure people living with obesity, consumers, retailers, policy makers and academics.

The University of Reading led project aims to develop a blueprint for a coordinated set of policy interventions to support the transition to healthy and sustainable diets in the UK.

This research, published in October 2021, generated a map of policy levers organised by food supply chain segment and developed a taxonomy of broad types of policy lever.

This report presents a case study on food public procurement (FPP), examined through the lens of food system transformation.

The research, published in November 2020, draws together publicly available data sources, public documents and research articles to map and quantify the food system.

The published report by the University of Exeter focusses on the impacts and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic across the UK food system.

This new report commissioned lays out a flexible approach for creating more strategic and holistic behaviour change initiatives using food business behaviours as an example.

This research identified that fundamentally, local authorities lie at the heart of many public sector food supply chains into school meals.

New report, produced to understand and evaluate on-farm food loss and waste in the UK.

This report provides an overview of the concept of transformation to highlight
some of the critical aspects that need to be considered when embarking on an
initiative, approach or campaign which is intended to be transformational.

This new report examines how Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) approach and navigate knowledge-policy interfaces in the context of UK food policy. Specifically, it examines how different types of CSOs produce and use evidence, build and maintain relationships, and mobilise narratives to leverage food policy change.