Shaping the debate: has corporate lobbying impacted UK laws on promoting products high in fat, salt and sugar?

In a previous publication we examined publicly available information on meetings between food and drink businesses and UK policy-makers. In this new Discussion Paper we take the same approach to study whether the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have been subject to corporate lobbying. This Discussion Paper examines meetings between policymakers and lobbyists that took place between July 2020 and July 2021, when the British government was putting policies in place to restrict the promotion of foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS).

This paper presents data on meetings held between government ministers and representatives from the food, advertising and media industries, and assesses how these meetings might cause political ambitions to sharply differ from political reality.

Antony So is a communications and policy professional with extensive experience at the intersection of business, communications and politics. His international career has included work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the British Chamber of Commerce, the Food and Drink Federation, the United States Senate and for several political campaigns.

In 2018-2020, he studied for an MSc at the Centre for Food Policy, where his dissertation examined the political and lobbying complexities of the reauthorisation of glyphosate in the European Union. Prior to working in communications and advocacy, he gained a Master’s degree in EU politics from the London School of Economics’ European Institute.