This paper uses interviews with senior representatives of the UK food retail sector to explore how retailers view sustainable diets and the extent to which “less and better” meat and dairy plays a part in these understandings. It finds that retailers have diverse understandings of sustainable diets, and that these seldom include “less and better” meat and dairy. While retailers are implementing strategies to improve the sustainability of their meat and dairy supply chains, none of the retailers studied are actively trying to reduce the amount of meat they sell. 

This paper examines the climate commitments of the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies - summarised in this table - which together produce around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. It also compares the companies’ projected future emissions to the Paris climate commitments of the country in which each company is headquartered (while noting that the Paris Agreement does not view climate responsibility in these terms), and traces the political influence of the 10 largest US meat and dairy companies.

The Guardian newspaper has analysed 44 studies on the mislabelling of seafood. 36% of thousands of samples across more than 30 countries were found to be mislabelled. Although some errors may be accidental, the writers suggest that since most of the substitutions were cheaper fish labelled as more expensive fish, fraud is likely to blame in many cases. 

Academics and students from Cornell University have released a website, Our Changing Menu, that tells the story of climate change using food. Aimed at a general audience and accompanying the book of the same name, it explains climate change, describes how the production of foods such as avocados, olive oil and beef might change, and offers solutions. A searchable food ingredient database, which will continue to be updated, shows how selected ingredients are expected to be affected by climate change.

US environmental campaign group Mighty Earth and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre have jointly released the Cocoa Agroforestry Library. This is a searchable database of scientific literature on cocoa agroforestry aimed at industry, policymakers, researchers, activists, farmer groups and more.

This book uses the principles of Life Cycle Assessment to think about the circular economy. Table readers may be particularly interested in Chapters 10 (on packaging, including food packaging), 11 (agricultural crop production) and 12 (livestock production).

This book offers guidance to African entrepreneurs on how to found and grow resilient food and agriculture businesses. Chapters cover an overview of the food and agriculture sector in Africa, sustainable business models, scaling, innovation and technology, financing growth and building resilience.

This report from the US think tank The Breakthrough Institute models the effects of publicly-funded agricultural research and development in the United States on crop production, land use, inputs and greenhouse gas emissions. It finds that spending more on public agricultural R&D would increase land use and emissions in the US, but that these increases would be offset by reductions at the global level.

This series of seven briefing papers from the International Livestock Research Institute and CGIAR uses a One Health approach to highlight the linkages between the health of livestock, crops, people and the environment.