Food Justice: the Report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry is published today. It is the result of a year-long investigation into social justice in food and farming, undertaken by a committee of respected and influential figures from across the food sector. They include Fairtrade Foundation CEO Harriet Lamb, Andrew Opie from the British Retail Consortium, Melanie Leech, Chief Executive of the Food and Drink Federation, Paul Whitehouse, Chair of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and Jeanette Longfield, who runs the campaign group Sustain

A report of the May 2010 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum
Britain has new people in government and a new kind of politics. As in every sector, farming and food businesses wonder what this will mean, even as new ministers and civil servants grapple with that question themselves.

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Food and ethics are intimately connected. Whether you’re a food producer, business, consumer or policy-maker, decisions about food involve consideration of the health and welfare of our planet, people and animals.
Ethics refers to the values, principles and codes by which people live. Acting ethically means taking values seriously and asking ‘what should I do, all things considered?’

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Recent trends such as increasing obesity levels and rising food prices have pushed sustainable development and public health promotion squarely onto the policy agenda. Yet action on sustainability and wellbeing is only credible if it also tackles the structural causes of injustice.
Ethical argument
Sustainability often adds up to little more than ‘eco-efficiency’, where social justice becomes an optional add-on for government, business and campaigners.

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According to the WHO (2005), approximately 1.6 billion adults worldwide are overweight and at least 400 million adults are obese, with predictions that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million obese.
Obesity is a major risk factor for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and some cancers.
There are more obese people in developing and newly industrialised countries than there are in the industrialised world.
Ethical argument

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Essential reading
Under EU law, “traceability” means the ability to track any food, feed, food-producing animal or substance that will be used for consumption, through all stages of production, processing and distribution. It exists as a way of responding to potential risks that can arise in food and feed, and acts as a risk-management tool to ensure that all food products are safe to eat.
Food businesses throughout the supply chain face daily dilemmas about where their products come from, and who or what is affected by them.
The Food Ethics Council today launches a toolkit to help them get to grips with these issues, introduce key ideas in ethics, and provide a framework for decision-making.
Funded by the Naturesave Trust, ’Ethics: a toolkit for food businesses’ contains:
- A crash course in ethics and how it relates to business;
- An ethical decision-making tool;