Project Description

Ultra-Processed Foods (UPF) public dialogue

Project summary

In 2025, UKRI commissioned a deliberative public dialogue exploring people’s views on ultra-processed foods (UPFs), their place in our food system, and how they should be governed and regulated.

The year-long project  explored some of the complexities around how people view UPFs, looked at their place in our food system and how they should be governed and regulated. It also explored where people get their information from and who they trust. You can watch a film about the dialogue process below.

Research has revealed that people are increasingly eating foods high in fats, sugar and salt as well as UPFs, and this has been linked to rising rates of obesity and poor health. The UK population ranks among the worst in Europe for levels of obesity and is one of the biggest consumers of UPFs. Tackling obesity and related poor health is a challenging issue, and understanding the role of UPFs in dietary choices and ill health is a major part of this.

This public dialogue set out to ensure that the views of people across the UK feed into UKRI research and innovation research priorities and programmes at an early stage.

It aimed to develop understanding of public perspectives on:

  • What participants consider to be important paths for research;
  • How UPFs impact the health and wellbeing of the population;
  • The potential for policy actions in the area of diet and health. 

Impacts

The results are published in a full dialogue report, summary report and a technical appendix, and have been made available to government and wider stakeholders including the Chief Scientific Advisors’ Offices, The Department for Health and Social Care, The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, non-governmental organisations, research institutes, and industry with the aim of contributing to the development of dietary and health policy. The findings are being championed by the UKRI Food Group. So far, it has fed into the strategy of research institutes focussed on food, environment and health, key policy areas such as the UK Food Strategy, and has informed a £3.75 million Diet and Health Collaborative Research and Development funding programme to drive food innovation and improve health outcomes across the UK. 

A full project evaluation will be published later this year which will capture an overview of the impacts.

Project materials

Making sense of UPFs dialogue report

Cover page of a report titled Making sense of UPFs: a public dialogue. It features handwritten notes, logos of Food Standards Agency, UKRI, Sciencewise, and the text Findings report, Hopkins Van Mil, April 2026.

Summary Report

Slide titled Making sense of UPFs: a public dialogue. It presents An overview and summary of draft findings by Henrietta Hopkins. Logos for UKRI, Sciencewise, Food Standards Agency, and Hopkins Van Mil are shown.

Technical Appendix

Cover page of a report titled “Making sense of UPFs: a public dialogue, Technical Appendix.” Includes logos for Food Standards Agency, UKRI, and Sciencewise, with sticky notes and the date April 2026.

Oversight Group Minutes #1

Oversight Group Minutes #2

Oversight Group Minutes #3

Oversight Group Minutes #4

Related content

News: Families ‘left in the dark’ about UPFs and potential harm to children, public dialogue reveals
Blog: What members of the public told us about ultra-processed foods and why it matters

Findings at a glance

Participants saw UPFs as a vast topic. They felt the dialogue was a foundational piece of deliberation from which more work should follow to make sense of UPFs, including for research, policy and action. 

Key Messages:

  1. Surprise and shock at how embedded UPFs are in UK diets;
  2. Participants want a greater awareness of UPFs and their impacts;
  3. An ambitious call for research to bring certainty;
  4. A balance – action now or action when more evidence is in place;
  5. Strong concern that the food system has been set up to create an illusion of choice, that society has left decisions on food availability, affordability and accessibility to the market;
  6. Scepticism on industry-led messaging on UPFs;
  7. A high-level of trust is placed in publicly funded researchers, scientists and specialists, collaborating, including with industry, to provide credible and transparent information on UPFs;
  8. A call for a redistribution of power informed by scientific evidence;

Throughout the process, participants acknowledged and understood the complexity involved in the area. This included reflections on the thorny trade-offs involved e.g., convenience and affordability against potential harmful impacts on health and the environment. This led them to embed in their research priorities the need for clarity on UPFs, as well as articulate why they felt public dialogue is a valuable method for understanding these complexities in depth.

Trust in UPFs

People spoke of receiving information on food/ diet from: 

  • Advertising, marketing and information on food packaging
  • Media/ social media  
  • The NHS and government

Trusted information is defined by participants as provided by those who do not have a vested interest and have credentials in their field. As a result participants spoke of trusting academia, researchers and scientists as providing evidence-based independent information on UPFs. 

Research Priorities

Research priorities in relation to UPFs were with three main categories:

  • UPFs research: on the impact of ultra-processed foods on health, and the impact on the environment of their production
  • Behavioural research: on people’s interactions with UPFs
  • Structural research: on broader societal factors affecting UPF production and consumption.

Participants discussed the principles that underlie their decisions on these research priorities as being: 

  • The inclusion of long-term studies, without precluding action now;
  • Creating research partnerships and collaborations, nationally, e.g. academia and the NHS, with industry and internationally;
  • Including and account for diverse populations: differences in impact according to age, gender, race and pre-existing health conditions;
  • Being independent of industry influence, whilst retaining the principle of cross-sectoral collaboration;
  • Being transparent – in methods and findings;
  • Ensuring research plans account for potential changes in eating behaviours over time;
  • Assisting in addressing key societal challenges including rising diet related diseases and health inequalities.

Why did they highlight these research areas?

Participants expressed deep concern about UPFs and that they are “everywhere”. Their priority research areas were proposed because of the scale of impact they felt the research could have. They pinpointed three main pathways: 

Government: 

  • Helping to decide whether the government should take action to reduce/ restrict UPFs – and what that action should be. 

Society:

  • Support public awareness and decision-making over their food purchasing decisions and engagement in food-related issues e.g.
    • Concerns for public health, especially children and young people
    • Concerns for the environment
    • Concerns that the food system has embedded inequality
    • A fear that society has relinquished control of what is available and affordable on our High Streets to vested interests – rather than to good public policy in the best interests of communities.

Industry: 

  • Supporting the reformulation of UPFs to make them safer/ less harmful
  • Retaining some benefits of UPFs

The full findings are now available to view in the dialogue report, summary report and a technical appendix on this page.