Why everything you thought you knew about ultra-processed foods is wrong

Banning or whacking hefty taxes on popular food items won’t work, writes Modern Baker co-founder Leo Campbell. But there is another solution – I should know

In the 2021 satirical film Don’t Look Up! an extinction-level comet was on a disastrous collision course with Earth. If you don’t like to think about unpalatable things, the title makes a lot of sense. If you do, not so much.

The film aimed to highlight our inexplicable levels of comfort with the manifest dangers of climate change. My own concern is the equally perplexing and pressing question of how long we’re going to continue assisting our citizens to eat themselves ill.

So, as Labour’s new Food Strategy review gets underway, there’s an urgent need to reframe the debate around the most contentious issue in our diet: the “disastrous miracle” that is ultra-processed foods (UPFs). To some it’s a non-issue – to others, an imminent comet.

On the one hand, UPFs provide filling food to billions at a scale unimaginable in previous centuries. On the other, the inevitable popularity of UPFs is blighting healthcare systems and shortening lives everywhere it gains a foothold – which is pretty much everywhere, and counting.

The debate is predictably polarised. The unrealistic are calling for outright bans or regressive taxation on UPFs, while the self-interested – in making it, stocking it and eating it – vigorously defend the status quo.

Both sides are guilty of ignoring the realities in front of them. It’s clear the status quo is unsustainable, not least for healthcare systems; it’s equally clear that imposing taxes or a blanket ban on popular foods will be as counterproductive as Prohibition.

Of course, there’s a more intelligent solution. As usual in the evolution of our species, the answer lies in the available technology. The fact is, Britain already possesses the capacity to transform UPFs from a health liability into a national asset and global beacon.

On the back of six successive government grants from Innovate UK totalling millions, my business, Modern Baker, has developed a clean label platform technology that proves the UPF can be reformulated to deliver genuine health benefits, with next to no inconvenience to the consumer.

It’s not even a secret: our recently launched proof-of-concept product, Superloaf – now in over 1,000 Sainsbury’s and M&S stores – is selling incredibly well.

Superloaf can legitimately claim to be the healthiest bread ever baked at scale, while offering a format and taste profile that appeals to the over 70 per cent of UK adults and children who still prefer industrial white bread. Best of all, it’s been specifically developed for the same large-scale machines that make the 8 million industrial loaves our nation buys each day.

This same platform technology can also reshape entire categories of processed foods – not just baked goods like breads, biscuits and cakes, but also pizzas, pasta, ready meals and beyond. We can transform them all from their current state – addictive “food-adjacent” entities with negligible nutritional value – into nutrient-dense, health-enabling, still-affordable versions people still willingly choose to eat.

A soon as it appeared, food industry organ of record The Grocer took notice, describing Superloaf as “the world’s first healthy UPF”. Right time, right place for the National Food Strategy review? You’d have thought so.

However, history shows that food strategy reviews always fall short when they fail to prioritise (and even exclude) progressive voices and innovative solutions – which, to date, is pretty much every time. We’ve seen numerous well-intentioned attempts to “fix our food” founded on the rocks of conventional thinking and entrenched viewpoints. In short, nobody looked up. That has to change.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Our food and health systems are teetering on a brink. The socio-economic cost of poor diet to the UK is calculated at a staggering £268bn. The National Food Strategy must balance multiple competing priorities: food security, sustainability and health outcomes. So it’s fortunate that Britain already has the expertise in food technology innovation to address all these challenges, simultaneously.

Four key ingredients are essential. First, the government must recruit progressive viewpoints into policy discussions. Next, challenges must be viewed through a systems lens rather than in silos. Then, we must completely overhaul the metrics currently used to assess nutritional value – the current “fat/sugar/salt” orthodoxy is decades behind the science and hasn’t improved outcomes over 30 years. Finally, the government needs to show the political courage to demand and enable UK innovation.

So, Labour. Are you ready to mandate systemic change and apply joined-up thinking to the nation’s health? We fervently hope so. If not, you could always suggest an easy, three-word strategy: Don’t look up.

Leo Campbell is co-founder of Modern Baker