Achieving UK nutritional security - Scenario mapping of sustainable fruit and vegetables intake

While there is an evidenced need for the increased production and consumption of FV to achieve net zero targets (Eustachio Colombo et al, 2021), increase population health and achieve nutritional security, not all FV may be equally suitable to achieve these targets. The food group as a whole is widely recognised as one of the most important and affordable sources of micronutrients (Schreinemachers, Simmons & Wopereis, 2017), and a key building block in any recommended diet, whether focusing on sustainability or not. However, taking FAO's definition of sustainability into account, there are arguably widespread differences in the bioavailable nutritional contents of different types of FV, as well as their environmental footprint including GHG emissions, water use and contribution to air acidification and eutrophication (Frankowksa, Kumar Jeswani & Azapagic, 2019). Therefore, to achieve nutritional security, co-benefits could be achieved if supply and demand focused on sustainability, ensuring FV intake is supporting nutritional intake and uses the minimum amount of resources to achieve this. There is a need to further understand what role the sustainable intake of FV can play in achieving nutritional security, and in particular, which crops are best suited to do so within the UK context. This requires focusing on the quality of FV intake, rather than the current quantity-focused guidelines. In the current guidelines, for example, two people could be meeting the daily intake requirements, with crops with vastly different nutritional values and environmental impacts.



Understanding the role of the sustainable intake of FV builds on two key existing research areas.

Firstly, it builds on the field of sustainability analyses of food products, typically conducted in the form of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). A LCA is able consider environmental, social and economic dimensions of products and interventions, with the aim to understand the full impact of a certain product or process. In food systems, there have been a range of important studies that have assessed the sustainability of diets in the UK using LCA, looking at elements of environmental impact, nutritional quality and affordability (Berners-Lee et al, 2012, Macdiarmid et al, 2012; Reynolds et al, 2015; Eustachio Colombo et al, 2021; Clarke et al, 2022; Yacoub Bach et al, 2023; Scarborough et al, 2023;). While differing in scope and focus, a frequent drawn conclusion from the LCA data is the suggestion that, overall, plant-based diets have low environmental impact, and high nutritional quality (Masset et al, 2014, Clarke et al, 2022), which shows the importance of increased FV intake. At the same time, Macdiarmid (2012) emphasises that moving towards a healthier diet may lead to higher GHG emissions, and therefore negatively affect environmental sustainability of the diet. While nutritional quality environmental impact and affordability are integral parts of a sustainable diet, existing research where those two components are combined has primarily focused on food groups as a whole (i.e. meats, dairy, legumes, fruits and vegetables), rather than differentiating between different products within food groups, such as different fruits and vegetables. This provides an opportunity to build on the existing LCA data of UK food products, including FV, and deepen the knowledge of the sustainability of different crops.

Secondly, it builds on long-running efforts to increase FV consumption in the UK, as part of the 5-A-Day EatWell guideline. Available data on FV intake shows that the majority of the UK population is not meeting recommended guidelines of FV intake (Eustachio Colombo et al, 2021), and is facing a number of key nutritional deficiencies (Richardson & Lovegrove, 2020), which may be influenced by low FV intake. Existing campaigns to increase FV consumption have primarily focused on increasing the quantity of FV, rather than looking at specific crops.