More veg – UK citizens, civil society and manufacturers working together on upping veg content of diets

Increasing our veg consumption has the potential to avert 21,000 premature deaths a year in the UK, with additional environmental benefits. Research shows that eating more veg and a little less meat could reduce our dietary carbon footprint by 17%.

Peas Please started work in 2016 with a clear mission: to make it easier for everyone in the UK to eat more veg. Shifting dietary habits is not easy, but our trailblazing approach aims to change this by tackling all parts of the food system simultaneously, working with actors from across the food system to do so. We are seeking to address the shortcomings of the many healthy eating campaigns that have previously tried (unsuccessfully) to increase the UK’s vegetable consumption, by focusing on both supply and demand-side drivers of change rather than education alone. To date 100 organisations have made a ‘pledge for more veg’, and together our pledgers have served or sold an additional 163 million portions of veg. We have also recruited 180 Veg Advocates, individuals who will work as agents of change in their communities to support us in our mission and help us to ensure we are including citizen lived experience of the food environment into all our activities.

In this dialogue, Peas Please will bring together a group of Veg Advocate citizens, representatives from our food manufacturing pledger organisations, and civil society to explore current opportunities and barriers for food manufacturing to support the UK population to eat more veg.