This paper reviews the literature on global food security projections up to 2050. It finds that global food demand is likely to increase between 2010 and 2050 (by 35% to 56%), while the population at risk of hunger is likely to decrease over the same period (range: 91% decrease to 8% increase). 

TABLE’s Tara Garnett has been interviewed on an episode of the podcast Great Green Questions, tackling the question: "Is being vegan the only way to save the planet?" The podcast episode covers the impacts of the production and consumption of both livestock and vegan alternatives, the ‘’tyranny of choice” and the implications of click and collect culture, and whether it is possible to farm without animals.

This report by the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London summarises the qualitative research methods that are available to help understand how people interact with food environments, including interviews, community observation and photo elicitation. The report notes that there has been relatively little qualitative (compared to quantitative) research on lived experiences of food environments, and that existing qualitative research often guides commercial product development but is less often used to inform policy.

In this paper, FCRN member Gesa Biermann uses a survey of German consumers to explore the different meanings and expectations attached to eating at home and eating in restaurants. The study shows that meat-eating is more common in restaurants than at home, for example 59% of flexitarian respondents ate more meat at a restaurant than at home. This is attributed to perceptions of eating meat in restaurants being an opportunity to treat oneself and celebrate special occasions. The paper suggests that to encourage plant-based eating in restaurants, the meaning of plant-based foods must become more aligned with notions of “the good life” (for example, relating to ideas about hospitality, generosity and pleasure).

In collaboration with WWF, the UK supermarket Tesco has announced a target of increasing sales of plant-based meat alternatives by 300% by 2025, relative to a 2018 baseline. To meet this goal, Tesco plans to introduce new plant-based products, try to keep prices affordable, work with suppliers to encourage innovation and display meat replacements alongside their animal-based equivalent.

This paper examines how localised the US food system could become by calculating theoretical minimum foodshed sizes (i.e. average distance travelled by food) for 378 urban areas under seven different dietary scenarios. It finds that (on average) foodsheds can be smaller for the low-meat diets compared to high-meat diets.

This modelling study, co-authored by FCRN member Luke Spajic, analyses both the health and environmental outcomes of national dietary guidelines from 85 countries, then compares these outcomes to global health and environmental targets, as well as the outcomes of the diets recommended by the World Health Organisation and the EAT-Lancet Commission. The vast majority of guidelines - 83 in total, or 98% - were found to be incompatible with at least one health or environmental target.

This paper explores the association between consumption of ultra-processed foods and indicators of obesity in a sample of the UK adult population, using data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey between 2008 and 2016. 

FCRN member Nicole Tichenor Blackstone has co-authored this paper, which compares the diets recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission and by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). It finds areas of similarity as well as areas of divergence.