The FCRN and the Food Foundation have jointly produced new report based on a meeting, held November 2016, on the topic of metrics for sustainable healthy diets for the food industry. While a range of sustainability metrics for this industry already exists, none comprehensively measure the progress (or otherwise) that food companies are taking to foster a public shift towards more sustainable and healthy eating patterns (SHEPs). The meeting report considers whether further work on such a set of metrics would be of use.

While regulation aimed at improving food products has traditionally focused on decreasing unhealthy ingredients such as salt or sugar, a new move to aid food producers to include healthy ingredients is on the way. At a recent workshop organised by Euractiv it was discussed how the addition of, say, protein or fibre in processed food could be policy goal as well.

The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), a global, multi-stakeholder initiative developed to advance improvement in sustainability of the global beef value chain, held a conference in October 2016. 

David Baldock, a Senior Fellow and former Executive Director of IEEP, gave a Food Thinkers talk at an event organised by the Food Research Collaboration, entitled: "Horses and Carts: can policies in a post Brexit world harness farming to more sustainable diets?"

Edited by Marlyne Sahakian, Czarina Saloma and Suren Erkman

This newly released free eBook aims to provide the latest perspectives on the nutrition challenges that are now common to all societies worldwide. It argues that the case for good nutrition for all people, in all parts of the globe and throughout the entire life-cycle, is growing stronger and includes contributions from some of the world’s most influential and respected experts in the field.

The World Bank has released a short working paper arguing that the expansion of seaweed farming in tropical developing countries could have large positive impacts on local poverty, ecosystem management and climate change mitigation. The report goes through different benefits and uses of seaweed production and briefly discusses current and potential markets for the crop.

This article evaluates the impact of voluntary crop sustainability standards on biodiversity protection. The authors reviewed the 12 major crop standards (such as Organic cropland (IFOAM), Fairtrade and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), and found that only two of these prohibited all deforestation (Rainforest Alliance/Sustainable Agriculture Network and Proterra).