As we head into the holidays and look ahead to the new year, we are taking a moment to look back at some of the defining moments of 2025. From new food strategies and delayed regulations to emerging themes that shaped the year – and will continue to influence debates into 2026 – this short edition offers a snapshot of this year's key developments. Take a look below to see how 2025 shaped up for the food policy sector.
We wish you a very happy holiday season and we’ll be back in 2026 with more insights, analysis and updates.
The Whitehouse Food & Nutrition Team
Five Key Policies of 2025
1. EU Safe Hearts Plan: Since cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the EU, in December the European Commission published a plan to tackle this issue, with a key focus on prevention, and more specifically, diets. A leaked draft had included plans to introduce a tax on highly processed food high in fat, salt, or sugar. However, this didn’t make it into the final text, which instead announced more vague plans to explore tools to incentivise reformulation and healthier choices, which could include financial actions.
2. UK Food Strategy: In July, the UK government published its new National Food Strategy. While it was more of a high-level vision rather than a detailed policy plan, it gave an indication of the UK’s focus in food policy for the coming years: economic growth, environmental protection, and the promotion of British food and culture.
3. EU Deforestation Regulation: Originally due to enter into effect at the end of 2025 after already being postponed last year, in October, the Commission proposed to push back the legislation yet again until 30th December 2026. The delay was confirmed by EU institutions in December, alongside proposed amendments to the Regulation aimed at simplifying due diligence requirements.
4. EU-UK Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement: Following an EU-UK summit in May aimed at resetting EU-UK relations, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that they would be working to negotiate an SPS agreement. The aim is to remove checks at the borders and boost agri-food trade. To achieve this, the UK would agree to “dynamic alignment” with EU food law.
5. Soft Drink Industry Levy: This landmark UK policy, first introduced in 2018 with the aim of tackling obesity by encouraging industry to reformulate soft drinks to lower their sugar content, has received an update this year. It will now be extended to milk-based drinks, and the existing threshold for soft drinks has been lowered from 5g to 4.5g per 100ml.
Five Key Themes for Food and Nutrition Policy in 2025
1. UPFs: Throughout 2025, the term ultra-processed foods (UPFs) went from being used as a catch-all term in the media to being used as a target culprit for negative public health outcomes by the World Health Organisation, The Lancet, some national governments and EU institutions. More policy initiatives to come in 2026!
2. Marketing restrictions of HFSS: When, during the previous few years, the EU was focused on ensuring consumers were best equipped to make healthy food choices through improved food labelling, policymakers have started to increasingly focus on food environments, and more specifically, the types of food advertised to consumers and especially the most vulnerable ones (i.e. children).
3. Simplification of supply chains and ESG requirements: This year, the EU has greatly focused on simplifying and removing sustainability requirements for EU and non-EU food business operators with its series of Omnibus Packages. This work culminated in December, as the European Parliament and Council agreed on a package narrowing the scope and removing a series of requirements under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
4. Novel foods: Across both the EU and UK markets, policy discussions have greatly focused on streamlining novel foods risk assessment processes. In the EU, this culminated with the publication of the Biotech Act I, which, despite industry calls, refrained from suggesting regulatory sandboxes for novel foods, an initiative already introduced in the UK.
5. Food nationalism: Food nationalism continues to quietly influence food and nutrition policy debates, as food consumption patterns and the agri-food industry’s interests continue to vary across member states.
Get in touch: Zoé Choulika, Account Director, Food, Public Health and Sustainability zoe.choulika@whitehousecomms.com
