Health and Social Care Committee

Therefore, I move to item 3, and this is in regard to our inquiry into obesity, and our next evidence session—it's panel 10. And I would like to welcome our two witnesses this morning, and I wonder if you could introduce yourselves for the public record. Kate.

Thank you, Chair. My name is Kate Halliwell. I'm the chief scientific officer at the Food and Drink Federation, which is the UK trade body for food and drink manufacturers, of which FDF Cymru is a part.

And Andrea.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Andrea Martinez-Inchausti, and I am the deputy director for food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, which is the trade organisation representing the retail industry. We have a Welsh arm, called the Welsh Retail Consortium, which I represent as well.

Lovely. Thank you, both. And you both have just mentioned, as we were preparing for the meeting, that you're both happy for us to call you Kate and Andrea, so, thank you very much.

So, if I can ask you both an opening question: from a manufacturing and retail perspective, how are you, and how is the industry, helping to develop healthier options for consumers?

I'll kick us off on that. So, as for food manufacturing, obviously, we recognise that obesity and the problems that that leads to in terms of communicable disease is something that we recognise and that we need to take seriously, which we've been doing over a number of years now. And we actually would put that into three main areas: so, product, which I'll come on to, as that directly responds to your question, alongside workforce and how we talk to consumers.

So, thinking about product, so far, companies have invested in healthier product development. That might be changing recipes or it might be launching new products into market. So, over the last eight years, in our membership, the result of that in an average shopping basket has been a third reduction in salt and a quarter reduction in sugar and calories.

It is, obviously, something that still needs to continue, and how we look to explore that is how we can support our larger membership in terms of taking forward innovation. So, that might be around how to support them in terms of working with academics or working to invest into the factories. And then, with smaller companies—which, of course, actually, are across all of the UK, but in Wales, 97 per cent of manufacturing businesses in the food and drink sector are small and medium-sized—it's trying to look at innovative ways to share knowledge and encourage those companies to look at that. We have a scheme in Scotland, which I can certainly talk to, which really looks to support those smaller businesses so that they can understand the changes that they could make to their recipes, in some cases quite straightforwardly with only very small amounts of money, such that you're getting that product development right across the spectrum.

Thank you, Kate, and there were some points there I know Members will want to pick up on, but in terms of the earlier part of your answer about what you're doing as an industry, I suppose the key question is: what have you picked up that consumers think, from those changes that you've outlined? What do the customers think?

Yes, as you'd imagine, that's probably mixed—you know, the customer isn't one thing. Actually, to be honest, that's partly why, sometimes, reformulation can be quite a slow journey. So, sometimes you might launch something that's really innovative and different, but quite often what we would look to do is what we would call 'health by stealth'. So, you slowly maybe change that nutrient profile, and salt reduction would be a really good example of that, where, literally over decades now, the salt has been slowly coming down since the first salt programmes were announced in the early 2000s, and so the idea being that consumers don't really notice. So, actually, you just slowly change the recipe and people adapt to it.

I would say, overarchingly, consumers will quite often, in consumer surveys—and Andrea's members probably do a little bit more direct-to-consumer stuff—we are seeing 'health' starting to come up as why people might choose a product. Obviously, price is still really important for most people, but that doesn’t always translate to choice at shelf edge, I would say. So, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. And you can think about that in your own lives—that very much depends quite often on what you're buying it for.

So, yes, I would say it's a mixed response, but companies are putting that investment in to try it across a range of things. So, it might be a reduction in nutrients. Actually, with some of the more indulgent products, something like chocolate, which is actually really hard to reformulate, and where companies have managed it with lower sugar products, actually, consumers don't tend to buy those—they tend to get delisted quite quickly. Then it's around thinking is it a smaller portion size, maybe, that you should be offering and encouraging people to have, or the frequency with which they eat it?

Okay. Thank you, Kate. And if I ask you, Andrea—. Is it 'Andrea', not 'Andrea'? I do apologise, Andrea.

Either way.

Thank you, Andrea. If I widen out the question to you to anything you want to say on the earlier questions, but also to think about different price points as well for healthier options, because, clearly, it would be good that—. Perhaps you can outline and explain that there's a different price range to make sure that healthier foods are affordable as well. So, anything you want to say on the earlier points and expand on that point as well.

Of course. Thank you, So, in a similar way to the manufacturers, our members have a very strong presence of what we call 'own brand', so that would be the retailer's brand, and they have applied very similar approaches to the ones that Kate has highlighted. We've made a commitment to 'reformulation', as is historically used. Currently, the term that our members like to use is 'product improvement'. I think they're making products more wholesome by doing the traditional reformulations, such as reducing salt, sugar, fat, calories, but also looking at positive nutrients. So, it's looking at the quality of carbohydrates—something that could be more wholegrain as opposed to plain flour; increasing the quantity of fibre, which is one of the nutrients that we're under-consuming; and we also look at micronutrients. We've just done quite a bit of work on vitamin D, we have the law on folic acid, et cetera, et cetera.

One of the things that has also been in our work and that members have looked at actively for many years is clean labels. In answer to your question in terms of consumer acceptability, et cetera, we do take the feedback from consumers very seriously, and we have heard loud and clear, over many years, that consumers like to see, in the ingredients of the food that they consume, things that they can relate to—things that they might be able to find in their kitchen cupboard if they were to be able to produce the product or if they were to attempt to produce the product themselves. So, wherever possible, that is something that we have looked into very closely. We're not challenging any of the safety assessments by regulators et cetera, but there are certain ingredients and certain additives specifically that our industry has certainly moved away from.

There is a challenge that we currently face. I remember, when I started in this job about 20 years ago, nutrition was one of the core pillars, and probably at the top of the corporate and sustainability agenda for all companies. And what we find nowadays is that diet and health compete with sustainability, with animal welfare, and with many other options and choices that consumers make. So, we’re making products healthier, but we’re also very mindful that we have to provide choice. So, there is always, for example, this debate about dairy milk versus plant-based milk—what is better and what is worse? And there are certain things that have benefits in one way, and certain things that have benefits in the other. So, I think, when it comes to health, it’s not as simple as just understanding what might be lower in fat or lower in sugar; it’s about providing choices, and understanding that different consumers have, as well as diet being very high on the agenda, many other factors that drive that consumer choice, as well as price.

We board members have made a commitment to present products in the most affordable possible way throughout all their product ranges. Our members are known for having a lower price-point own brand in many cases, and that is not seen or looked at in any different way to the more premium section of their own-brand offering. So, they would all go through the same reformulation factors, and they would all go through the same policy decisions that have been made. So, as an example, our members, many years ago, decided not to use the sweetener aspartame. That is not used in any of the ranges, whether it’s at the more expensive or higher price-point part of the range, or whether it’s a lower part of the range. The same policies apply throughout all of the offering from a retail own-brand perspective.

Sure. Thank you, Andrea. So, I’m going to ask a question, and it seems like a question that could take half an hour to answer, but I’m going to ask you just to give me a bullet-point response to this: what are the challenges in producing healthier food? And I’m going to ask you for just two or three bullet points, maybe, and then, as a response, we can perhaps dive into some of those areas later on in the session. Who would like to go on that—Kate or Andrea?

I think the challenges are that they can—. Well, it depends on the products that you’re looking at, I would say. So, it’s not going to be the same across everything. If you were looking at food rather than drink, let’s say, typically, ingredients like sugars and fats will play a structural role. So, it’s not as simple, quite often, as just taking something out or, indeed, just putting something in. Andrea mentioned fibre, and—[Inaudible.]—do that as well in terms of, you’ve got to—. So, that complication just, I think, means it can take time. It certainly takes quite a lot of money and resource just to make sure that the recipe you end up with is something that’s acceptable to a consumer.

So, if you think about something like cake, actually, what you can do there, which is still acceptable to a consumer as being a cake, can take really quite a lot of innovation understanding. And for the smaller companies, I think, quite often it’s about having them understand that they also have a role and how we share that knowledge with them in quite simple and straightforward ways so that they can engage with it.

So, I think your answer to that question, in a nutshell, is a consumer being happy with the changes, and also the cost that could be associated with bringing about that change for the manufacturer as well. Have I got that right?

I mean, there can be a cost—well, there is a cost, but, actually, more than that being the main barrier, I think it’s the technical changes. So, if you take sugar out of a cake, you basically end up with a pancake—it’s flat. So, how do you—? What are the actual ingredients that you can use to make that product?

And in what you’ve just said, Kate, is there anything that Government can do to help address that issue—either the Welsh or UK Government?

I think there are a couple of things that we think would help. So, the first one is around support probably for larger companies that will have technical teams who are working on this, or work with specialist providers. And that probably is more around encouraging the investment in. So, with something like research and development tax credits, reformulation isn’t always captured within those. So, I think that would be helpful, along with making sure that things like the funding that is already going to UK Research and Innovation for research—so, we have a big programme, for example, on food systems—just really trying to connect in and make sure that some of that allocated funding is looking at some of those issues that Government want companies to focus on and that companies are trying to achieve.

And some of those things you've mentioned, Kate, are these things not happening now, then? Is that what you're suggesting?

So, the R&D tax credits, no. The UKRI, I would say it is to a degree, but you have to be very linked in to be able to follow that through, and sometimes the business relevance of it maybe comes in quite late, rather than at the design stage. And I think that there could be a role for just making sure that it comes in a bit earlier so that, as the questions are framed, there is an understanding of what's required. But it does happen to a degree.

And then for smaller companies, we actually have an approach up in Scotland that the Scottish Government funds called Reformulation for Health, and that looks at a range of activities, really, to bring in companies. And it's taking quite a whole-system approach. So, we hire two people, funded by the Scottish Government, to work with food producers, and that's food manufacturers and it's also into retail and out-of-home providers as well, to help them either really quite simply in terms of just looking at their recipe and giving them a benchmark and some advice as to what they can do, through to small grants. So, it's £2,000 to £5,000, probably, which can help a company in terms of things like doing the recipe testing so that they can get their information for on the pack, doing food safety testing to make sure, if you bring the salt down, for example, that that doesn't increase your microbial growth.

Thank you, Kate. Before I move on to the next block of questions, there are a couple of questions on the back of what you've just said, from James and John. James, do you want to go first, then I'll come to John and then back to the witnesses? James.

Just on one element, about how the food industry can actually help to produce healthier food. If we look at the soft drinks industry, for instance, we also see a polluter-pays model on cleaning up the environment, and in the soft drinks sector, because of the pressure that obesity was putting on the health service, the sugar tax was actually brought in, actually putting a tax on sugary drinks. What would your thoughts be if something was to come in for food, in a way, because, actually, some companies are not doing what they should be doing to reduce sugar and salt in food? I'm thinking of some fast-food restaurants that still pump their burgers and everything else full of sugar. Do you actually think that there should be some responsibility put on them that, actually, they're doing unethical practices that are putting huge pressures on our health system, but they're not actually paying the price for doing that either? And if you want to drive change, sometimes, there needs to be a bit of carrot but there also needs to be a bit of stick as well, doesn't there, because otherwise you're not going to drive the changes that you need to see—what we've actually seen in the soft drinks industry, where they've had to make changes because of the regulations that were brought in.

Hold that for a moment. John, did you want to come in with your question as well?

Yes. I think that what we've heard so far is talking about slow and gradual change in terms of reducing the consumption of salt and sugar and increasing, perhaps, the consumption of fibre, but slow and gradual doesn't really do it, given that obesity is identified as a public health emergency, isn't it, by public health and Governments and others. And I just wonder, in terms of what we've heard about priorities for food manufacturers and the retail sector and work to produce healthier products, to what extent social class factors are considered and factored into the work of the industry, because we know that it's very much poorer communities that tend to have the worst diets. Sometimes it's affordability, sometimes it's not getting the key messages across. I just wonder to what extent the industry is considering those factors and acting on them.

Andrea or Kate, who wants to answer or address either of those points? Kate.

Yes, I'm happy to address both of those points. So, I would say, on the tax side, yes, soft drinks companies have removed a lot of sugar; that’s actually been ongoing for a number of years. So, it started pre the tax, but that did undoubtedly speed that up. Nonetheless, I would say it’s more the product type than the mechanism of the policy. So, if you look at soft drinks subject to the levy, and then you look at milk-based drinks that were not subject to the levy, in the first three years of both of those programmes, both product types reduced by roughly 30 per cent in their sugar intake, and that’s basically because it’s much easier to reduce sugars in drinks, generally speaking, than in foods. So, I think—. Of course, it's for the Government to decide if they want to introduce a tax on foods, but I think in terms of the stages it takes to reformulate, I personally would say that encouraging investment by the companies to enable those advances to happen is probably going to be more beneficial.

In terms of the socioeconomics of this, we do produce at every price point, as Andrea indicated for her membership as well. But you’re right: reformulation generally is quite slow to be successful—not always, sometimes it can be a bit quicker—and if you launch a new product, basically, rather than reformulating a brand that people really know, that is also sometimes a way that you can move a little bit quicker because people haven’t got an expectation when they eat that product. But, of course, reformulation is only one thing. So, absolutely, it’s not going to solve obesity—obesity is multifaceted. I know you’ve heard from multiple witnesses already on that and there isn’t a silver bullet. I think in terms of the lower socioeconomic classes, absolutely obesity is more prevalent now. And so I think there is still something in terms of the product that they have access to and can eat and having those innovations and those healthier products coming through right across price points. But I think there’s also much more that needs to be done that targets those communities and that helps them in a more holistic way than just looking at the reformulation.

So, for example, one of the things that our companies are doing outside of product is we've got some pilots running in factories with our workforces and we’re looking at what the people who work in those factories identify as being barriers to their health; what it is that a company might be able to do to support them or to overcome those barriers; and also then working with an obesity charity, MoreLife UK at Leeds Beckett University, linking to a local community to see, actually, whether there's something that the workplace can do alongside local community support to try and raise the health across that community. That’s just one example. I realise that it’s really off product, which is what we were talking about, but I think that’s because in the kind of question that you’ve raised, it won’t only be the health profile of the products that are sold that will impact.

Thanks, Kate. Joyce Watson.

Good morning, both. I want to look at the mandatory requirements that are currently placed on food manufacturers to ensure the production of healthier products. Should, in your opinion, further mandatory requirements be put in place, and if you think so, what sort of mandatory requirements do you think are needed?

Andrea or Kate? Andrea.

Shall I cover that? Thank you. So, at the moment, the majority of the manufacturing requirements placed on the industry are non-mandatory. This is generally approached through a voluntary engagement approach. As Kate has mentioned, reformulation is one part, and one of the things I would say, having been involved in the reformulation journey for a number of years, is that there are different models that work or have worked in better ways than others.

So, we, for example, have a very detailed salt structure and matrix, which have targets for 90-odd food categories. This is very clear, it's enabled us to communicate to suppliers in a very, very clear way; all the suppliers are getting the same information for every single retailer. I would say the salt reformulation strategy, although arguably slow—and we also have to bear in mind that we have had a couple of challenges with going too far in products, and therefore turning people off from the consumption of those products et cetera—I would say overall, it has been a success.

There have been other reformulation programmes, for example the sugar one, where we have made great strides on a number of categories, for example breakfast cereals, yoghurts. On other categories, it's been a lot more challenging. I think there are a number of elements that have made it very challenging. I think the first one being that, again, we don't have the detailed guidance that we've got with salt. So, people have had to trial and test—with different resources, obviously there have been different outcomes—what is possible in terms of the reduction of sugar from some of those categories.

And the other element that I think is challenging with elements like sugar is that they are products—Kate alluded to chocolate, but the same thing applies to biscuits, cakes et cetera—where you might be able to reduce sugar slightly, but it is an inherent ingredient within those types of products. They're indulging; sugar applies—not only is it important for the flavour profile of the product, but it also has a structural function. So, we in retail believe that if there was to be legislation pinning down the composition of certain products, we would have a similar effect to what has happened in South Africa, where there are a number of companies that went out of business because they just couldn't meet the targets, and it resulted in the Government withdrawing some of that legislation, because they felt it was just not possible to achieve many of the targets that they set. Alternatively, if you were to set targets that are achievable, they would have to be set so high that you wouldn't actually see the level of reformulation that has already happened by some companies.

We feel that voluntary approaches are still what works. I would call on the Government for some more robust guidance, because at the moment I don't think we have the necessary tools to be able to guide even companies the size of my members, but actually smaller companies, in that reformulation journey. We should learn from experience and we should have more detailed guidance. But I think in terms of how we can achieve better results, we feel in the retail industry—and we're better placed, perhaps, than individual manufacturers—I think we're moving into an area where a lot of the composition of products is being optimised, and we really have to move to talk about healthier balanced diets, healthier balanced baskets, talking of consuming certain categories, not necessarily in ways that they have been reformulated, but in lower quantities and less frequent.

Joyce, are you happy if Mabon comes in with a quick question?

Okay.

Mabon.

Thanks. Andrea, you mentioned there that sugar is an essential component for things like biscuits and that it's an indulgence when people eat biscuits and products like that. Can I push back a little bit on that, that it's not an indulgence, because they're cheap? And we've discussed already the fact that people living in poorer areas can't access healthy foods, so what they do access is low-health food, things like biscuits, and we've heard evidence in this inquiry that people suffering from mental health issues, for instance, might indulge in the overconsumption of biscuits. So, it's that price point that is the issue, and because they're readily accessible and freely accessible in many cases, people will consume more. So, going back to James's point, isn't there a case that we need to look at forcing companies to put the price up so that it is an indulgence, it is a luxury, rather than something that's easily accessible for people to consume?

We frequently get this challenge on price, and I accept, and it is true, that some of these products are affordable, and it is difficult to say 'no' to them when you get into the store when you're feeling down, or when you're feeling like a treat. They should be—. If I say, they should be a treat, and they are—they should be a treat and they should be consumed in moderation. We feel that all of our members have taken the price-point element very seriously by reducing and encouraging financially the consumption of healthier foods. If you look, the fruit and veg aisle has never been cheaper. Members have made commitments to reducing—and in some cases, they're very much lower—the price of things like five pieces of fruit, or fruit and veg on a weekly basis et cetera. So, I would argue that healthy food is not as pricey as it often comes up to be; there are a lot of affordable ways of eating healthily. But it is fair to say that there are indulgent products that are expensive. We wouldn't get into a conversation of, 'Should we force companies to increase the price?', because it gets into very difficult territory where we're basically talking about certain companies, frankly, potentially even making more money out of selling certain foods given the margins that they might have. It goes back to the minimum pricing conversation in Scotland, for example, for alcohol, et cetera.

Okay. I'm just conscious that we've got 45 minutes left, and we've more question areas to cover than we've got time. So, I only say that to help you both, because if answers could be a little shorter it would help us to get through our questions, but no criticism of you, as well, for your detailed answers. Joyce Watson.

I'm interested in monitoring, particularly of the healthiness of products that are being manufactured and also, therefore, sold. Are you aware of any monitoring by Government, whether it's Westminster or here in the Senedd, that is taking place, or any requirement of reporting on that monitoring?

Kate.

Shall I start? So, over the years, certainly at Westminster, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and Public Health England as was, and tracking back through various departmental changes, have bought Kantar data, which is basket data, and that's how they've monitored the reformulation programmes. So, that is basically standardised to what an average basket would be, so that's commercial company data that Government buys and then has tracked through against, for example, all the salt programme targets.

Separately to that, under the last Westminster administration, work was being undertaken to develop the food data transparency partnership, which was being undertaken with Government, industry and the third sector contributing in. So, they'd started, effectively, to design what that might look like—so, what metrics might that use, for example, so, probably a metric that aligned to the nutrient profile model, which is what underpins the forthcoming promotional restrictions. That was being trialled by some companies in terms of how easy that is to put into their databases, for example, because, obviously, not everyone has the standard data. So, that work started, but we haven't had confirmation that it's continuing on health. We have had it confirmed that it's continuing on the eco side, and I think that is certainly something we would be supportive of, so that that data is then freely available—so, standardised and freely available.

From our perspective, some of the benefits of standardising that data are that, actually, companies get quite a lot of requests, either from Government bodies or from charities, to report against a whole heap of slightly different metrics. So, actually standardising that so that everyone has access to the same information could be helpful.

I see that you want to come in, Andrea. I'll just ask Joyce if she's got any other questions, and I'll bring you in next, Andrea. Joyce, any other further questions?

No.

No. Andrea, you come in on the earlier question.

What I was going to add to what Kate put very clearly is that, in the absence of any robust monitoring frameworks at the moment, many of our members do publish a lot of these reformulation data and balance of baskets data publicly. So, they would have corporate sources and responsibility websites that do show their progress on both diet and health metrics and sustainability metrics.

Thank you. John Griffiths.

I wonder if I could ask the representative of the retail sector if there's any thought into what stores in more deprived areas do on these issues, because we often hear that in more deprived areas there's a whole range of retail outlets, not just food, that are not encouraging what would be considered healthy behaviours. I just wonder, given that we know it's a particular problem for more deprived communities, whether the retail sector has any particular thoughts on what approaches ought to be employed in those more deprived areas—what's on offer, the pricing structures, the promotions and everything else.

The majority of our members have a policy of having a national pricing strategy, which includes national decisions on what those offers and promotions are in all the stores in the country. We have seen, when applying or trialling or piloting different policies in different stores, that customers travel to other stores where other products might be on promotion or where the pricing of certain products might be different. So, we do tend to just apply those policies at national level.

Care is being taken to provide as much information as possible to customers in store, and a lot of our members include pharmacies in their local stores, which do have diet advice, nutrition advice, et cetera, being provided to customers. Some of those stores also act as pillars of the community in terms of the provision, for example, of breakfast clubs to the community. But, in terms of pricing, promotions and offers, at the moment, the vast majority of our members operate a national pricing approach, so, they wouldn't be different in those stores in deprived areas.

In terms of encouraging people to make healthier choices, what about a traffic-lights system, which a lot of people have suggested, in terms of making it easy to understand which foods are healthier or not? So, you'd have 'red' for the least healthy, I guess, 'amber' for the foods and products in between and 'green' for those that are healthier, so it's very simple to understand. And it could be prominent in terms of people noticing those labels. Is that something that you think would be useful?

I lose track of time, but quite a number of years ago—

In 2020.

Thank you. The Government did a very comprehensive study on different approaches to traffic lights on pack. What is being described as the single traffic light—just having one colour on pack—was one of the options that was assessed, as well as the multiple traffic lights and the multiple traffic lights with guideline daily amounts. So, there were a number of options that were put on the table and that were assessed. And for different reasons—everything was balanced, there was a lot of piloting being done with customers—the current approach that we have on labels was believed to be the more comprehensive. It was also tested with consumers. There are benefits in all, and, yes, a single traffic light is probably a more simplistic approach to companies, but it would be very difficult to potentially have to provide more emphasis on one nutrient versus another to be able to establish that classification.

What I would say is that the equivalent of that is perhaps not necessarily red, amber and green, a 'yes' or 'no', or a high in fat, sugar or salt or not, but is the nutrient profile model that is currently being utilised for establishing what are the goods that can be volume promoted, placed in certain areas of the store, or advertised. So, that is something that companies are looking at at the moment in terms of how do we potentially further use that current, well-established classification of a product being high in fat, sugar and salt or non-high in fat, sugar and salt, which would be the equivalent, but it wouldn't be necessarily a traffic light—it would be HFSS versus non-HFSS. And there are discussions at the moment about do we use these in any way to potentially convey that information to customers. It hasn’t necessarily materialised in anything, but discussions are certainly taking place, because it's now become a relatively well-established system.

Kate.

Yes. I guess, just to add slightly to that—and apologies, Andrea, I cut across you—2020 was when I think, actually, all Governments, because the current traffic-lights approach was a national approach that all Governments of the UK had backed—. There was an evidence review at that point. We're still waiting for that to be published back, so, I think it is timely to ask if our nutrition label is as good as it can be. Nutrition labelling is beneficial, it gives clear information; it's only ever going to do a certain amount, and, generally speaking, probably only engages those who are already quite engaged. Some research that has come out that the Westminster Government undertook more recently was looking at whether colour does help, and it did seem to still be something that's beneficial. So, they looked at both Nutri-Score, which is used in several European countries, and the traffic-lights system used in the UK currently, and they seemed to help people navigate more than those that didn't contain a colour. But, certainly, we would welcome Government publishing that evidence review and going into a discussion. And as Andrea said, maybe there is a role for having something that is even more simple. So, keeping the nutrition information we have, potentially on pack, for those that find that useful, but maybe some sort of indicator to help people know really quickly what’s a healthier choice could be beneficial.

Do you have any further questions, John?

Can I just pick up, if that's okay?

You can absolutely pick up, Lesley.

Thanks very much. Good morning, both. My questions are to Andrea. I just want to pick up what John asked you. Your answer was, not surprisingly, that many of your big supermarkets particularly, I would say, follow a national plan and that they don’t differentiate when their supermarket is in a deprived area, for instance. Now, I would say that’s disappointing to hear, because I think, in reality, people who live in deprived areas or who live in relative poverty don’t have the choice that many of us take for granted about what they eat. Eating healthy food is absolutely secondary to them—it’s about eating. So, I think it is disappointing to hear that there isn’t that differentiation, if you like. Would you say that is the case in perhaps some of your small—the corner shop, for instance, or the local garage in some of these deprived areas?

The members or those companies that we have in membership extend to relatively large companies. We wouldn’t necessarily have representation of small—. We would have representations from the likes of the Co-op, Spar, Budgens, but we wouldn't necessarily or we don’t represent independents. I think it is the Association of Convenience Stores that would usually represent those types of businesses.

So, your local Spars, would they—?

We do look at Spars, for example, yes. Again, I think, depending on the size of the store, the presence of the store, they might have a slight price difference, but, again, the vast majority of members have a national strategy. I am not aware of any member that has a different strategy depending on their location and the deprived nature of the area in which they might be located. This is something that I’m happy to take away and consider and discuss with members for reflection.

I think that would be really helpful, just to see if they think it would be something that they would find useful. I think consumers would certainly find it useful. Because, as I say, if you’re going into a store with £5 in your pocket and you’ve got to feed a family for x number of days, I can’t imagine that—. It doesn’t matter how we promote healthy food, unfortunately, I don’t think that is something that would be top of their list, really.

I think the issue that John raised about the traffic-lights system, I think back to when I was growing up, and we didn’t have the information on packaging of food that we now have. I think that’s really beneficial. Do you think there is more that can be done to make sure that people understand the information? I personally think on the saturated fats, for instance, you do do that traffic light—the red, amber, green—and it does make me think. If I see something with red, it does stop me in my tracks. I wonder if you think there’s anything further that could be done—this is a question for both of you—around that?

I think certainly when the traffic-lights approach initially launched, which was originally under the Food Standards Agency, there was actually a public campaign around it to help people understand what this new label was, what did it mean, how you could use it to impact your choices. So, I think there is probably something around traffic lights, or potentially more broadly, if it did go into also having some sort of health mark that shows whether it’s not HFSS or HFSS, whatever Government decides, really, in that space. But I think if there was—. We don’t tend to see big Government public health campaigns—obviously, they’re very expensive to run. But having that kind of information campaign that then companies can also get behind—. Because I think what you saw when traffic lights first came out was that there was an overarching Government campaign, but that meant that local authorities could pick up on that; it meant manufacturers and retailers could promote the same information. So, whilst we don’t, outside of the label, tend to have touch points to consumers, our websites would have it, for example. But then I know in store there would have been explanations about it as well. So, I think there probably is more, as a collective—both as the food industry but actually with other partners—that could be done to help people understand that information.

What about display—? Sorry, Andrea.

I would agree with that. I would say that, obviously, the traffic light was—as a better way of describing it—an industry invention. Our members came up with it. It was felt that it was a very useful way of providing that information, and the Government came in and endorsed that approach.

We have, historically, always looked at what is the best way to communicate and convey nutrition and all aspects of information to consumers. One of the things that has stopped us a little bit over the last few years has been waiting for any outcome from Government of the review of that front-of-pack signposting scheme analysis that they did a few years ago. So, I think it would be good, as Kate has said, to be able to have an understanding of whether there are any legislative Government initiatives to move forward with this.

The other aspect is, obviously, we've been busy with leaving Europe, Brexit, Northern Ireland having to follow labelling, European guidance, et cetera. I think we now are in a process where our Prime Minister is renegotiating our relationship with Europe, so we would also like to understand and know whether that is going to affect, potentially, what might be on labels, and are we going to have to go back to adhering or aligning to European legislation, et cetera. I think all of that has stopped the industry a little bit from potentially investing or moving forward with looking at what changes we might want to be making on our labels, given that we are a bit unclear as to the legislative framework that we would have to adhere to.

This is a question for you both as well about how healthy food, as opposed to unhealthy food, is displayed. There was a big push, wasn't there, to remove chocolates and sweets from where you pay for your shopping—and vapes recently. I actually think that's really powerful, and I'm going to quote a supermarket. I'm not on commission, but if you go into Aldi, the first thing you see is fruit and veg, and they often promote fruit and veg. At Christmas, everything was 17p—for a bag of sprouts, a bag of parsnips—which I think is really excellent. For me, that works for me, and I'm just wondering what you think needs to be done around placement, if we need legislation or regulations, for instance.

Other supermarkets are available as well.

Other supermarkets are available. [Laughter.] And do have fruit and veg in them.

And they did the same promotion over Christmas—the 10 top retailers all did the fruit and veg promotion over Christmas. That was a commitment that we made three years ago.

It's excellent, and I'm sure it has a massive impact. But the placement of it is also very important.

We do have regulations coming in on that. In England, effectively, half of them came in in 2022, which was around placement, and then the remainder, which are more around price promotions, are coming in in October, and the Welsh Government is introducing similar regulations from March, I think, next year. So, in some ways, we will now get to see. I think it has been discussed for quite a long time, but those regs are either in or very close to being in. And so, I think, what's actually really key for that next bit is evaluating that and seeing if we are seeing the changes that were modelled to happen, now that it's actually live and happening, so that we can play that then, or Government can play that back in to its future policy developments.

Thank you.

Thank you. John, did you have any further questions in this area?

Yes, please, Cadeirydd, on the role of retail and food manufacturing in communities, both in terms of encouraging healthier choices, but also dealing with food insecurity. I wonder if you could suggest to the committee ways in which that engagement might be strengthened and developed.

We have a very—. I think our members have a very strong record of their engagement with the community. We normally publish a yearly report on all of that, which has been given to the community. We are in the process of running the latest report, but the figures in 2023 include £25 million having been donated to local charities in Wales, and 7 million meals were provided, again, in 2023, whether it's a breakfast club or whether it's kitchens. Foodbanks have been provided with more products than ever—again, the figures were around 4 million in 2023, and there was an incredible amount of money, around £7 million, raised in fundraising for local charities, and in between 2 million and 3 million hours of volunteers providing support for communities.

But in addition to these, the supermarket is often the focus of a lot of local communities. So, our members played a vital role being vaccination centres through COVID; they have pharmacies that support the community with things like breastfeeding clinics, diet clinics, health management clinics, et cetera, et cetera. And this is only increasing in terms of the quantity of money that is donated and the number of services that are provided to support those communities. And it's often the local communities that choose where that money goes to. So, they normally have a choice of a number of options available to them, to decide which they think is a local cause that needs the most support.

Similarly, forgive me, I do not have the figures in the way that Andrea has, but I can certainly send them to the committee in terms of support for food redistribution, which has certainly increased in recent years, alongside support for breakfast clubs—a lot of our companies would donate products into breakfast clubs at the moment. And then I think I touched on that we have a workplace pilot initiative. So, as you'd imagine, I think certainly for larger companies, there are all sorts of workplace initiatives going on. And quite often, if you think about factory settings, they may be in less affluent communities. Some of those would be—. KP Snacks, for example, runs wellness kiosks, where people can go and get their blood pressure checked and that type of thing.

But the pilots that we're looking to do, which are really small scale at the moment, I have to say, were really trying to think about, effectively, how do we engage with this kind of whole-system approach and help factories engage in their local communities, but also recognising that we employ a lot of people. I think I said earlier that we employ 25,000 people in Wales as a collective industry, just the manufacturing part, so obviously, much more if you then include retail. And so actually, you've got a touch point there with a lot of people, in terms of how you can help them manage their health, but also that linkage out.

So, to give you an example, at one of the factory sites, having talked to the employees about some of the issues around accessing healthcare, there were quite a few people with type 2 diabetes. But you're running shifts, you're working shifts—a lot of the factories will do that—so how do you try and help to make sure that they can access the check-ups that they want? And that tied in with the local health provider, who was trying to improve access to diabetes clinics and make sure that people got early checks. So, then, it's a case of, okay, can both sides work together to try and get more out of the sum of what everyone is putting in, to work a bit smarter, whether that's amplifying messages, whether it's how you increase access.

As Andrea said, retail is often seen as a community hub. That isn't really true with factories in the same way. Clearly, there's restricted access for all sorts of reasons, including food safety. But actually, maybe there is something on industrial sites that can be explored about how we help facilitate that kind of care.

Okay. And does Welsh Government work with retailers and food manufacturers to facilitate and encourage that community engagement, would you say, or not?

I am not aware, would be my answer on that. I know that we have been involved in discussions for the delivery plans for ‘Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales’, and that includes a whole range of stakeholders, and overarchingly, that sets out a systems approach, so that is involving everybody. But they're certainly not involved in the small-scale pilots that we've run so far, although we'd be delighted to talk to people about how we could extend those. But, yes, I'm not aware that there has been specific engagement beyond the ‘Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales’ stakeholder engagement.

I've got a colleague called Sara Jones, who is physically based in Wales. And I know she has a very good relationship with a number of parliamentarians in Wales, as well as with the Welsh Government, and we have often had conversations that go beyond the legislative remit to see whether more can be done not only in compliance with the legislation, but perhaps with the ambition of what the legislation is trying to achieve. So, those conversations do happen often, in our case.

Is there anything structured around that or are they ad hoc conversations that occur without any pattern or regularity?

I would have said that they're more ad hoc conversations as opposed to structured conversations. So, again, if there was interest, we could certainly look into that. As we've done in the past, we're very happy to organise visits for some members with one-to-one engagement, and potentially even feedback on areas in which they could improve, or things that they may not have looked at could certainly be discussed. We would be very happy to take that up.

Thank you. And Kate, just ever so quickly, a short answer if you can, but what could the Welsh Government do to better engage with you as an organisation?

Similarly to Andrea, we do have someone based in Wales, David Harries, but I would probably describe that as ad hoc engagement. I think the stakeholder engagement from 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' has been structured and good, but we certainly would welcome—. Well, we could certainly, in a similar way, set up either site visits or discussions with large or small companies, so that people can hear directly where challenges are and what might alleviate that.

Okay, thank you. We've just got two subject areas left and if you're both happy for the two Members asking questions to interrupt as you talk, politely, if that's all right, in order to help to get through all our questions. Thank you. James Evans.

I think most of my areas have been covered, Cadeirydd. I think Lesley raised it earlier about the healthy food environment. I will just ask really quickly on the new regulations on the healthy food environment regs. I can remember I was involved a little bit with that in my previous shadow portfolio with Lynne Neagle. I'm actually just a little bit interested in what engagement the Government has had with the industry regarding the regulations coming forward. It'd be interesting to hear directly from you what that has looked like in practice.

We have been or they have been very actively engaged with us for a number of reasons. I think, (1) to be able to understand the practicalities and (2) because we've implemented those provisions in England and they were very keen to understand what things have maybe worked well, or haven't worked so well, and what areas we think could be improved, et cetera. So, the engagement has been incredibly active. We've had regular meetings with the Welsh Government and we have also had and facilitated a number of site visits, where our members have gone through the systems that they've put in place to make sure that they are compliant with the provisions of the regulations. So, I would say the engagement has been very active.

What are the views of your members on the regulations?

We have been supportive of the inclusion of the regulations, more so on the volume promotion side than perhaps on the placement. Our members have been potentially keen to do something on volume promotion, but because of competition law and having a very active competing retail environment in the country, they have not moved forward with that restriction on a voluntary basis. On the placement, I think there was slightly more apprehension to start with because it is such a core retail activity to decide where things are placed, but the experience in England has meant that we were very open to those provisions being introduced in Wales.

I think I cut Kate off earlier.

Did you want to come back in, Kate?

Only to say that we also have had good structured engagement with Welsh Government, and particularly thinking then about both the guidance to business to make sure that that's practical for them to use and understand now that we're in the 'How do we implement this effectively?' stage of the policy. And also because we've been running webinars to support smaller businesses who maybe have never had to do this nutrient programme model of their product ranges. And Welsh Government has supported us as we've run those webinars to keep companies up to speed with where—because obviously, the different nations have been coming in at different times—just to make sure companies are aware of where the regulations are and what's expected of them. So, they have helped us as we've tried to disseminate that out to businesses.

There was one final question on compliance. How difficult do you think it's going to be to enforce compliance? So, for perhaps your bigger retailers, it might be slightly easier for them to roll this out, but it's actually compliance of the smaller retailers. We were talking about Spar earlier, but there are other smaller convenience stores available—I sound like I work for the BBC. But just having trust—. How is the regulation going to work when there isn't enforcement? Because a lot of this is going to fall to trading standards departments, I can imagine, and they're already stretched as it is, especially with stuff around vaping and the rest of it and everything that's coming through. Do you think this is actually something that's going to work, probably, in practice, or is it just another bit of regulation brought forward that probably isn't going to be heavily enforced?

I'm optimistic that I think it will work in practice. I think one of the positives is that a lot of the leg work has been done, and the background work has been done, in England. One of the things that was most difficult when the English regulation was introduced is developing a system that will enable suppliers to provide information to the retailers, and then a second system for retailers to make sure that every single store was able to identify what those HFSS goods were. An Excel sheet being e-mailed every Monday was not going to cut it—it had to be something a lot more sophisticated. Because those systems are already in place, the rolling out in Wales will be a lot easier, a lot more smooth than it was originally in England.

I have to say, however, that one of the issues that is concerning my members is the lack of enforcement of the regulation in England. I'm probably e-mailed about 10 examples of non-compliance in relation to these regulations and the placement of goods in different stores on a weekly basis. I believe, as has been described, that the resources for trading standards are limited—they have many different pieces of legislation that they have to enforce. Kate alluded to the nutrient profile model; it's not necessarily a straightforward calculation—you have to have a bit of an understanding, especially for certain products that contain fruit and veg, which is not necessarily a figure that is available on the label. So, I think there are some limitations. So, any support that can be given to trading standards, and any additional support that they can get, would be welcomed, I'm sure by them, but certainly by us, who are taking the implementation of this piece of legislation very seriously. It's in our commercial interest to actually get the regulation implemented appropriately.

Okay. Diolch. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea. Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you. Could I go back to—? I'm going to ask my questions in Welsh. Could I go back to one point that Kate brought up earlier, which is the fact that the Scottish Government allocates money—a specific pot of money—for developing produce from small local businesses? Could we pursue that? Could you share some more details about that, please? That's of particular interest. And also, does that suggest perhaps that the Scottish Government is more proactive in this field?

Very happy to share more details of that. So, it's an approach we've been running since about 2019 on behalf of Scottish Government. Effectively, it looks at different things, different touch points, if you like, to engage smaller companies. So, as I said, some of that is around small grants, and then supporting the company through the process. And so, to give you an example of that, there's a pie manufacturer called Bells—it's famous in Scotland. They went into one of the reformulation bids. They got about £5,000. That helped them to reduce salt in their pies, and that took about 9 tonnes of salt out per annum. And then because, quite often, when you reformulate salt—. Salt is like your entry step, because that doesn't tend to be structurally involved in the product—sometimes it is, but not usually. But because they could see it could be done, and the support they got, they then bid again in the next round of funding for another small grant, and they've subsequently taken some fat out of those pies as well. They've taken something like 800 million calories out, just from that product. And that's obviously just one company.

So, the way the programme works is it will run these small bids—so, £2,000, £5,000—for individual companies to get involved. That might be an ingredient supplier as well, because that's a really good way of upscaling. So, if you think about someone like a spices provider into local butchers, if you can take the salt down in that original mix, then, actually, you hit a lot of smaller providers. But, beyond that, the two people that we employ on behalf of Scottish Government have reached out to academics, so we can link institutions to smaller companies to help them share the knowledge or have a little bit of lab space if they want to trial something. We also put placements through for food science students to try and encourage that kind of skills growth, because we know we've got a lack of skilled professionals coming through in food science—so, to really help them see that and embed that as a career. And we work with the local authorities, all 32 local authorities, in Scotland, because, quite often, notwithstanding the fact that enforcement officers are indeed very stretched, they're a touch point to businesses. So, if they're aware of a programme and some basics of it, it helps them to then refer companies through, either, when the grants are open, to bid for those, or we have a range of information available around how to start a process, if you wanted to start to get involved in it. And so—

Could I just pursue that? Are you aware of discussions that have happened with the Welsh Government to develop similar plans here?

We have—. We've spoken to Welsh officials. So, the person who leads the programme in Scotland is incredibly passionate about all of this, and so we have spoken directly to Welsh Government, and we've actually spoken to the Westminster Government as well. We think it would be a really valuable approach in terms of really engaging those smaller businesses and, you know, it's those entrepreneurial businesses that you kind of want to see and grow; if you can help them do that in a healthy way, obviously that benefits everybody. We calculated that it would roughly be about £250,000 per annum to roll a similar approach out in Wales.

Thank you. In terms of—. We are looking at obesity here. What steps, in terms of both the sectors that you represent—manufacturers and retailers—do you think that the Welsh Government should take in order to address obesity in Wales by working together with you?

Do you want to start with that, Kate?

It's much harder to look at each other when you're online, to work out who's going first.

So, I would say, in terms of—. I mean, partly I think it's working together, collectively, both across industry and Government and third sector. All of us working together can actually really help, because it generates ideas and we pull in the same direction. For me, the things that would support directly the work we do would be the programme I've just spoken about in terms of how you help engage companies in terms of product renovation. I think it is worth a consideration around is there a broader health campaign, whether that is general messaging or messaging related to labelling, that Government could put in place, and then companies both have the certainty of what they need to invest in and take forward, but also can amplify those messages. I always think back to when Change4Life started many years ago, and, actually, that really worked all together, with different sectors giving the same message out, and I think that is a really powerful thing that we can do.

Andrea.

Thank you. I would add a couple of things to the list that Kate has just suggested. I would say, as previously mentioned, enforcement resource. I think it is important, when a piece of legislation is introduced, that it is enforced not only as a statute, but also that resource for enforcement sometimes gives support for those companies that might understand the implementation of the regulation a little bit less than some of the companies, like my members, that have their resources and our resources. So, enforcement, support and resource I think are very important. Guidance, further clarity—. We've discussed before, for example, how the reduction of sugar is much more difficult than the reduction of salt. I think, again, going back to the drawing board and being able to understand what can be done, where have we got to and what further guidance and support and perhaps more specific metrics are available or can be delivered. And I think the last one would be, in a similar way to Westminster is looking at at the moment, a food strategy, or even support for or co-ordinated engagement within the devolved administrations for a national food strategy. We are discussing diet here, which is incredibly important, given the figures that we've outlined, or that have been outlined, but that is not necessarily something that is being seen in isolation. Sustainability is very important, and there is a lot of talk at the moment about sustainable diet, resilience of food production. We are using food in a certain way, in a certain environment, in certain circumstances, and all of that has to be taken into account. So, I think, again, how this feeds into a wider strategy would be incredibly important for us to understand how the Government wants to take this forward, or what plans does the Government have to take all food production, in a responsible, sustainable, healthy way, forward.

Thank you. And finally, if I may, the House of Lords's Food, Diet and Obesity Committee recently published a report that suggested that profit is a major incentive for food retailers and producers. Do you agree that profit is something that motivates the sector? And how much of a role do you think profit plays in all of this?

I mean, our members are commercial companies. They are, of course, driven and motivated by profit. But what I would say is that it is not profit at all costs. There is profit with a very strong set of corporate and social responsibility commitments that all of our members have publicly made and they are subject to scrutiny against. So, yes, profit, obviously, is incredibly important; they are commercial companies, that is the basis on which they were set up, but it is against a very, very robust set of corporate and social responsibility commitments.

So, many of our companies are private companies, or some of them are public companies, and that set of commitments that have been publicly made by all of them are very strongly scrutinised publicly on a yearly basis. So, it is not profit at all costs, but, indeed, you know, we are commercial companies driven by profit.

And Kate.

Yes. So, similarly, yes, of course, companies do need to make a profit, and I would support what Andrea said. I would also add that, by being a profitable company, that's how you attract investment, and we need investment in the sector. So, if we are going to drive forward either the innovations we're talking about in terms of food production, or for health, but also more broadly—so, innovation in terms of hitting our net-zero targets, introducing recyclable packaging, all of the host of things that are being looked at across the food system—we need to get investment actually going in the sector. Historically, food manufacturing investment is low, and that is something we really want to see increase, such that we can then invest that money back into the types of things that Government would be looking at us to do.

Thank you, Mabon. Just a last question to you both: are there any good examples anywhere in the world that you can point to where the retail sector or food manufacturers have played a positive role in promoting healthier lifestyles and preventing obesity? Any good examples you can point to in Europe or anywhere else in the world?

If I come back to labelling, which I know we've already spoken about, I would say that the wholegrain approach in Denmark is really interesting. That was a public-private partnership. So, it was led by Government, but supported by their respective health charities—so, the heart foundation, diabetes and so on, and cancer charities—and manufacturers, whereby the Government had identified that wholegrain consumption was very low—they use wholegrain rather than fibre in their dietary guidelines—so, they worked—. The health charities were helping in the messaging and putting that out. Companies made higher wholegrain products, with higher levels of wholegrain, and there was a label that was approved that was just a simple mark, basically. You had to have other nutrients as well alongside it, but there was a mark. And the reason I'm mentioning it is because usually, with labelling, you only see quite small differences, whereas, in this instance, they actually saw a more than doubling of wholegrain intake, and it happened across sociodemographics. So, I think that's a really impressive approach, and I think partly it was driven— . Well, it was driven by product availability, informing the consumers, but actually genuinely working in partnership so that people were getting the same message wherever they were receiving that information from.

Is there any obstacle that would cause the Welsh Government not to pursue such an approach?

I think it would be about being clear with respect to what was the thing you were trying to drive. In this instance, it was a very clear, ‘It’s wholegrain, and this is the amount we want to see in products.’ I think there would be a willingness for everyone to work together—we certainly would be. But that’s always going to make—. You probably would need a strong chair, for example, if you had all those people around a table, to make sure discussions were still productive and driving forward. But I do think in principle that, effectively, it’s whole systems, it’s bringing everybody in, focusing in on a goal, and being really clear about what the expectations are, and that can give you that result, especially when there’s a clear message to the consumer.

And Andrea, any examples from you?

I don’t have any international examples, but I wanted to add that the UK is actually usually seen as a leading country in terms of taking action on obesity activities. We have an incredible relationship or way of operating and engaging between Government and industry with non-governmental organisations, which is very rare in other countries, where all three parties sit around the table and have a discussion about the way forward. We are pretty open with Government, which again is something quite rare in other countries.

Legislatively, we’ve gone further and perhaps taken a stance that no other country has taken on things like advertising and the placement of products in store and promotions. I think we are one of the first countries, generally speaking—not only Wales, but England and Scotland as well—in terms of taking action in some of those areas. Again, for example, the nutrient profile model that was developed in 2004-05 has set the basis for the development of future or similar models in other countries. Our front-of-pack scheme, again, has set the basis for many other front-of-pack schemes in other countries in the world. And it is true that reformulation sometimes is slow, but again we’ve gone further than any other country in the world in terms of improving the product composition of our goods. So, I think there’s a point of slight optimism perhaps, but we are seen as leading in this area pretty actively by other countries.

That’s good to hear, but there’s a conflict in my own mind here, because it’s good that we’re leading the way, but when it comes to looking at the outcomes, we are far apart from perhaps other countries in continental Europe. So, how do you help to reconcile that?

This is not my professional opinion, but my personal one. I come from Spain, and I came to this country 20 years ago, and one of the things that I would say is that the eating habits are very, very different. So, that is something that, in itself, is a potential challenge in this country. I think it's the quantity of not only information, but also the availability of seasonal fruit and veg, the consciousness of healthy eating that you get, the role of food in the diet and in family engagement, et cetera, that I was exposed to when I was small is very, very different to what my son, for example, is being exposed to in this country. I think that is something that we are working with or have to acknowledge, in that we have more work in this area.

I understand. Yes, Lesley.

Yes, just a very quick point. I think what you said, Kate, about Denmark is really interesting. I'll certainly have a look at that. I think we can learn a lot from Scandinavian countries when it comes to policy. I remember having a briefing in a former life around food policy councils in America. They’re very common in America, where you get local citizens talking, and maybe America is not the best country when we’re talking about obesity, but certainly they had been quite impactful. I was wondering if you had any knowledge about them at all.

No, I'm afraid I don't.

Okay. Andrea.

I don't have any knowledge about them either, but we do run quite a number of consumer councils, you could call them, round-tables, where consumers in each one of the different supermarkets are asked to provide their opinions about the role of the supermarket in the community, what activities they're undertaking, what do they think their priorities should be, et cetera, et cetera. So, a lot of our members run those on a regular basis.

Okay. Thank you.

Kate.

Sorry, if I might, just quickly on that, almost going back to another international example, but both the Amsterdam model, but also, more broadly, EPODE—Ensemble Prévenons l'Obésité Des Enfants—which was set up, I think, originally in Belgium, then went to France, so it's about obesity in children, which took local perspectives, they're very much local initiatives, so you need local political leadership alongside national leadership, with local people identifying their needs, and that then feeding up into what the solution is, and certainly some of the earlier pilots—you're probably talking 10 years ago now—were showing some really quite good results in terms of children's obesity rates when compared to a comparable town.

Thank you.

Thank you. Kate and Andrea, thank you so much for your time this morning. It’s been a really fascinating session, so we really appreciate your professional input into our work. And we’ll send you a copy of the transcript, and if there’s anything you want to add to what you’ve said this morning, we would, of course, welcome that to help facilitate our report and inquiry. So, diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you for being with us this morning.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Take care both.

I move to item 4. There are two papers to note: correspondence from the National Training Federation Wales regarding the Welsh Government's draft budget and correspondence from Tenovus Cancer Care regarding the committee's inquiry into gynaecological cancer. So, if Members are happy to note those papers, and they're also available in the public pack. Thank you very much.

I move to item 5, and, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, I would resolve that the committee excludes the public from the remainder of today's meeting and items 1 and 2 of our meeting on 20 March, so we can consider the latest NHS waiting times monitoring report and the Welsh Government's response to the committee's report on supporting people with chronic conditions. Are Members content with that? Diolch yn fawr iawn. That's agreed. In that case, that draws our public session to an end today.