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Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income Peoplesresearch of similar campaigns, a potential side-effect was that the promotion of healthyfoods can “make something undesirable because it is healthy”, because of pressure toreplace the unhealthy food with the healthier option. Such a campaign was seen asacceptable to the Ministry of Health and industry at the time of interview.Removing GST from healthy nutritious foodThis is a focus of a separate chapter, Chapter 2.1 on the potential uses of economicinstruments. However, as five informants commented on reducing or removing GSTfrom healthy nutritious food, a summary of their comments is provided here. Allinformants saw this as problematic, with concerns including increased bureaucracy, lostrevenue, complexity around deciding what foods to exempt from GST, and lack of firmeconomic data about whether this strategy has significantly altered the cost of healthyfood in Australia. One Australian informant felt it was imperative for New Zealand toremove GST from healthy nutritious food, whereas another Australian informant saw theneed for economic modelling to understand what has happened in the Australiancontext.Nutrition knowledge and cooking skillsThree informants saw teaching of nutrition and cooking skills as a key intervention,particularly for those with limited incomes. A potential food industry intervention in thisarea was suggested by an industry informant of providing healthy eating recipes throughsupermarkets, and doing this in conjunction with a discount.Reformulation of low cost foods to make them more nutritiousTwo informants saw opportunities for making low cost foods more nutritious throughproduct reformulation, eg, reducing salt in bread through partnership between industryand the National Heart Foundation.Competitive mechanismsTwo comments were made around the influence of competition on the price of food, bothin an Australian context. The role of competition in general was noted, with an examplegiven of the effect on food prices of the introduction of the German supermarket chainALDI into Australia. “Where there is an ALDI it has driven down the cost of food innearby supermarkets”. Another comment was that monitoring food costs and makingcomparative cost information available to the public has the potential to lower food pricesthrough increased competition. This was seen as difficult to do, however, as it requiredfrequent updating of information. The informant stated that the cost to the Australiangovernment of setting up such a system was $AUS13 million per year. A limitation ofthis Australian system is that access to the information requires computer access,something low-income people are less likely to have. Initial enthusiasm from the publicfor this information reportedly declined because the information was not being updatedfrequently enough to be useful.Food redistribution and minimising wasteOne informant in an Australian context saw opportunities for reducing the cost of foodthrough reducing food wastage. Some examples were given of supermarkets donatingfruit to schools which they are unable to sell, and industry redefining their ideas of whatis ‘fit for sale’. As this informant noted, “a lot of food is ‘turfed’ because it doesn’t meetthe aesthetic demands of the customers”, eg, is bruised or blemished.119
Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income PeoplesThe same informant considered that reducing food wastage would be very feasible ifpresented to industry as win-win situation. Once a system was in place that was costeffective,it would be sustainable because of ongoing benefits to industry. It would belikely to have a positive effect on equity if food that was fit for consumption was sold at alower price. A potential side effect of donating food to community groups was that itcould create dependency; but it could also be used as a hook to involve people in acommunity programme to improve their food skills, and engage them in communityservices. Acceptability to stakeholders would depend on how the initiative waspresented.Community-based food initiativesAnother Australian informant saw opportunities for industry bodies to fund communityactivities that make low cost food more available, rather than focusing on reducing thecost of their healthy products. In Australia, the Woolworths supermarket chain hasreportedly provided community funding for projects such as food gardens. These werevery feasible as they were usually quite well marketed, but sustainability wasquestionable given that the funding was one-off and for a limited timeframe. The effecton equity was likely to be positive given that selection criteria favoured disadvantagedcommunities. Potential side-effects were seen as creating capacity in a communitywhere it did not exist previously, but there was also seen to be a risk of the fundingcausing “power issues in the community”. The initiative appeared to be well accepted bystakeholders.Self regulatory approachesIt was reported that the Ministry of Health is currently working with industry in a selfregulatoryenvironment, developing joint initiatives to improve the nutrition environment.This work was being done on multiple levels to have an impact on food available forMāori, Pacific and low-income people. “Our view is that the whole environment needs tochange, not just what is available on the shelves, and includes making people moreaware of what is available”. The main self-regulation approaches are around1) reformulation (making low cost foods more nutritious, eg, the Heart Foundationindustry partnership to reduce salt in bread); 2) marketing and communication(rebalancing the proportion of advertising for less nutritious versus more nutritious food);and 3) retail (covering supermarkets to food service outlets).Research and information needsGaps in information and the need for further research in these areas were identified byinformants. Most particularly, there is a need to better understand the influences on thecost of food so that effective intervention can occur.In summary, all key informants considered influencing the pricing of healthy, nutritiousfood to be a complex and difficult area. Nevertheless, a range of potential interventionswere mentioned where key informants saw a key role for industry.DiscussionThe literature review took a broad approach to considering the role of the food industryin reducing the cost of healthy food in order to improve food security. It examinedinterventions of price and improving the healthiness of the food supply at upstream,midstream, and downstream levels. Key informant interviews supplemented findings120
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