Big Food, Big Power

August 1, 2025·43 min·4 clips

Two major outdoor advertisers pulled Bite Back's anti-junk food billboards, silencing a youth campaign targeting food giants.

Sheila Dillon starts between journeys. On Chester Station, she asks whether big food companies have helped delay or weaken laws meant to protect public health, especially children's health. That question carries the programme into a London march, where campaigners chant about fake food while tourists watch strawberry-shaped placards go by. The worry is power, and who gets to use it before the public ever sees the rules. Critics say legislation has been slowed down and softened, even while government language promises the healthiest generation of children ever. Advertising is where the argument gets sharp. Jennifer Richardson from the British Medical Journal explains that restrictions can reduce harm, but still leave space for brand arguments and loopholes. The evidence is concrete enough to make the policy fight feel less theoretical. A reported 2022 study found that a ban had prevented thousands of cases of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Still, the rules have edges. The programme asks whether regulation should cover specific high fat, salt or sugar products, or the bigger brands behind them. That difference matters commercially. Richardson points to adverts for McDonald's chicken nuggets and fries, and a KFC teriyaki burger, that passed the profiling score. The model starts to look thin. For campaigners, those examples help explain why ultra-processed food should be formally recognised by government and other regulatory bodies. Cathy Cliff, speaking for the Soil Association, widens the case. She argues that eating too much ultra-processed food pushes out whole and minimally processed foods such as fruit and vegetables. At that point, overeating is not just personal habit. It becomes a public health issue. She describes these foods as hyperpalatable, easy to keep eating, low in fibre and poor in properties important for the gut microbiome. The charge underneath is plain enough: campaigners think the old model suits an ultra-processed food industry that would rather defend the status quo.

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