Improving access to healthy diets is becoming a global priority. Current food environments are flooded with less healthy products high in fat, sugar, salt and calories and have greatly contributed to poor diets and ill health globally.

Covid-19 makes tackling poor diets and obesity more urgent. This is emboldening policymakers around the world to take action intended to discourage the sale, and ultimately consumption, of less healthy food and drink products.

This includes an array of fiscal and other policy measures similar to those used to regulate other products considered harmful to health such as tobacco and alcohol. Consumers are also demanding healthier products with less sugar and fewer calories, while also supporting increased regulation of the food industry.

In this context, it’s important that food and drink manufacturers, who make and sell many of the products available on supermarket shelves and in out of home businesses, adapt to these changes. We provide an overview of what investors can do.