Major new food, health and nutrition event - Food Matters Live - turns spotlight on UK’s poor diet
Register now for your free ticket
This is a critical time for national food policy. The annual cost to the UK from malnutrition is predicted to reach £27 billion by 2015, with over 60% of adults overweight or obese, as well as a third of 10-11 year olds, and public health experts warning of a rise in diet-related illnesses such as rickets and gout. Now, a major new free-to-attend event is bringing together experts from a range of fields to explore solutions to these urgent issues.
Taking place at London’s ExCeL from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 November, Food Matters Live is a unique cross-sector forum that’s set to attract some 10,000 visitors from the worlds of food retail, manufacturing, nutritional research, academia and local and national government. It will offer public health professionals a host of opportunities to meet and collaborate with key figures from across the food and drink sectors, and steer the debate over how to improve diet and health outcomes on a societal level.
The three-day event, which is supported by the Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network at The Department of Health and the Royal Society for Public Health, will host a carefully curated exhibition featuring 200 leading organisations, as well as providing an unrivalled education programme delivered by more than 450 speakers. Conference sessions will feature world-leading experts in nutrition, health and food trends, as well as government ministers, council leaders, writers and broadcasters, while a wide range of seminars will examine a broad range of topics, from the alarming rise of childhood malnutrition to new ingredients that promise cognitive or cardiovascular health benefits.
Many of these issues will be vividly brought to life in a series of engaging live attractions, giving visitors a closer look at the innovative ways that the food and drink sector is promoting healthy food choices.
Food Matters Live is free to attend – to register for your free ticket visit www.foodmatterslive.com
80 essential seminars…
Food Matters Live’s seminar programme offers visitors an unparalleled opportunity to gain practical advice from more than 300 expert speakers. It will include 80 seminars covering the scientific, medical, social and commercial aspects of the future food and drink market, based on case studies and real-life experience.
To help visitors navigate their way around this wealth of information, the seminars are organised by eight key themes. For example, Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing will explore the role of product reformulations, public health campaigns and the latest ingredient research across seven key health-related categories: ageing, weight management, immune, digestive, cognitive and cardiovascular health, and sports nutrition. World-leading nutrition experts from universities including Oxford, Munich and Maastricht will share their findings in areas such as the impact of a Mediterranean diet on cognition and the potential of ingredients such as omega-3 and vitamin K2 to improve heart health.
Meanwhile, Dr Rachel Pryke, the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Clinical Champion for Nutrition for Health, will consider how healthcare professionals can collaborate with the food and drink sector to address weight management and other vital health issues, and a number of leading economists and food scientists will examine the impact of an ageing population on UK society.
Another key seminar stream will turn the spotlight on salt, sugar and fat, and the initiatives in place to reduce their consumption. Among the highlights in this stream, key figures from local government will join experts from the Association for Nutrition and Royal Society for Public Health to discuss the progress of the Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network. In particular they will examine the role of health and wellbeing boards and collaborations with businesses and schools in implementing the Deal on a local level. And similar ideas will be explored by the panel of policy and nutrition experts evaluating the impact of the National Salt Strategy – they will present and assess various approaches to reducing the nation’s salt intake to 6 grams per person per day.
20 lively debates…
Alongside the seminars, the Food Matters Live Conference addresses the complex relationship between food, nutrition and the nation’s health over a rich and varied programme of more than 20 debates. Throughout the three-day event, well-known figures from across industry, science, health, politics and the media will explore a range of compelling topics, from the obesity crisis to the role of the media and marketing in changing what we eat.
Several of the talks will focus on the crucial issue of how to raise public awareness of diet-related illness and nutrition – and reduce the high levels of Britons who either die prematurely or live with conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or osteoarthritis. Public Health Minister Jane Ellison MP will be joined by leading experts from the Malnutrition Task Force, MRC Human Nutrition Research and the Food and Drink Federation for a discussion entitled “The Nutritional State of the Nation: Whose Responsibility Is It?” This will examine the framework in place to drive transformational change – including voluntary responsibility deals with the food industry, public health campaigns and the creation of health and wellbeing boards – and ask what more needs to be done.
Meanwhile, Professor Susan Jebb, who chairs the Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network at the Department of Health, will lead a debate on the Calorie Reduction Pledge – the Department of Health’s attempt to get the UK to cut 5 billion calories a day. Speaking alongside Jebb, senior figures from the British Soft Drinks Association, the National Obesity Forum and the UCL Institute of Health Equity will consider whether such a “nudge” approach is effective, or whether tougher action is required. The conference will be hosted by well-known journalists including Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler and the Food Programme’s Sheila Dillon. 200 exhibitors … At the Food Matters Live exhibition, visitors can explore how the issues raised in the conference and seminars are already driving product development. The event features more than 200 exhibitors, from global manufacturers Kellogg Group and Warburtons to organisations at the forefront of ingredient innovations, such as Leatherhead Food Research. Many of the event’s supporters, such as the Food and Drink Federation and the Hospital Caterers Association, will be on hand to discuss their work and talk to visitors about the health-food agenda.
The exhibition floor also plays host to a number of live attractions that illustrate the key themes of Food Matters Live in entertaining and surprising ways. Catering for Health, for example, highlights the vital role of the food service sector in improving the nation’s diet: taking place throughout each day, narrated cookery demonstrations will show how caterers and chefs can provide healthier menus at any budget level. And Evidence Base features an interactive laboratory that reveals the science behind manufacturers’ reformulations and free-from foods.
Food Matters Live takes place at ExCeL, London from Tuesday 18 November to Thursday 20 November. For further information and to register for your free ticket, visit www.foodmatterslive.com
