Big Food, Big Power

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheila Dillon looks into claims that big food companies wield too much influence over government decisions and public health. The episode follows news from the youth-led campaign group BiteBack2030, which says its billboard campaign has been effectively silenced. The group recently organised a mock inquiry in Parliament, involving MPs, to share concerns about how junk food advertising and sponsorship are affecting the health of children in the UK.

Sheila also hears from a group of protesters who marched to Downing Street this month, shouting the message “Fight Fake Food.” Organiser Rosalind Rathouse, from the Cookery School on Portland Street, says the public needs to know how the food they’re eating is damaging their health. She is calling on everyone to learn to cook this summer. During the march, campaigners delivered a list of wishes to Downing Street, highlighting the changes they’d like to see in food policy.

Also featured are Jennifer Richardson from The BMJ, which has been investigating the impact of commercial influence on children’s health, and Cathy Cliff from the Soil Association, who submitted a Freedom of Information request to uncover the extent of food industry lobbying and its effect on government policy.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:04.9	Hello and welcome to the food program. It's Sheila Dillon here. And right now I'm standing on a
0:11.7	platform on Chester Station. I'm heading out of London to Anglesey for a few days.
0:20.0	This is just to say on my travels
0:23.6	that I hope you'll enjoy even be fired up by this episode,
0:27.6	which is looking at claims that the big food companies
0:31.6	are using their power to undermine legislation
0:34.6	meant to protect public health, particularly children's health.
0:39.8	And over the last few years, say the critics, legislation has been delayed and weakened.
0:46.8	Why? How? They seem to us like good questions to be asking when this government has committed itself to raising the healthiest
0:56.0	generation of children ever.
0:59.0	Fight fake food, fight fake food, fight fake food, fight fake food, fight fake food, an unlikely chant
1:09.0	from a long line of campaigners marching through London's West End.
1:13.3	On a recent sunny Sunday, the streets and pavements dense with tourists, who looked mostly puzzled by the chant, I suppose,
1:21.5	the strawberry-shaped placards and the lead banner exhorting them to learn to cook now.
1:28.9	I'm here very much because we are targeting young people at the moment through the big food companies.
1:34.9	For me, it's deeply disturbing because behind it is a hidden disaster for our health system and huge health crisis.
1:43.8	Claire McKenzie, producer of the documentary Six Inches of Soil,
1:47.8	what the organisers called a Good Food March.
1:51.1	The point was to deliver a huge pork pie,
1:54.4	which you can see on our social media, to Ten Downing Street,
1:58.1	except there was no pork.
	...

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