The Food System Is Changing. Is the Story Keeping Up?
Eating habits are shifting. Plant-based is mainstream. Sustainability is on menus.
Yet the food system’s contribution to climate change keeps growing, chronic diet-related disease is rising, and the communities most affected by both are largely absent from the conversation. Progress is real. It’s just not keeping pace.
The gap between what science knows and what people do isn’t a data problem; it’s a storytelling problem. And that’s what we’re heading to Reset Connect, London Climate Action Week’s biggest standalone event, to talk all about it.
Why London Climate Action Week matters this year
LCAW 2026 feels different – organisers are actively pushing back against political backsliding and climate scepticism, and food is one of the most urgent conversations in the room. Agrifood emissions have reached 16.5 billion tonnes of CO₂e annually – and they’re still growing, up 7% since 2000.
Why we’re here
As a strategic creative agency that specialises in food and drink. Our clients span professional foodservice, consumer brands, and organisations trying to drive genuine behavioural change around what people eat and why. So we are taking to the stage at Reset Connect because the gap between what science knows and what people actually feel, believe, and do about food is not a data problem… It’s creative storytelling one, and that’s our territory.
Three things we think are worth talking about
The plate is getting less interesting
Industrial farming has dramatically narrowed the variety of what gets grown and eaten globally. A 2025 review published in The FASEB Journal found that lower microbial abundance – driven by reduced dietary diversity – is associated with adverse metabolic outcomes, insulin resistance, systemic inflammation, and compromised gut barrier integrity. And a 2026 FAO-linked paper confirmed that microbiome biodiversity loss is further associated with metabolic disease, allergies, autoimmune disorders, and reduced vaccine efficacy. Dietary diversity isn’t just an environmental value, it’s a public health issue.
Your food looks the same. It isn’t.
Rising CO₂, drought, and heat are quietly degrading the nutritional density of staple crops. Atmospheric CO₂ reached a record 423 ppm in 2024 – 19% higher than 1990 levels and research shows that under concentrations expected by 2050, grain, iron and zinc levels are projected to fall by 5-10%, while wheat protein could drop by as much as 13%. The broccoli on your plate looks identical to the broccoli of thirty years ago but the data says otherwise. It’s one of the least-told stories in the food-climate space, and one of the most important.
We have a storytelling problem, not a data problem
The FSA’s Consumer Insights Tracker (2024–25) found that nearly 9 in 10 UK consumers cite food prices as their top concern. That’s entirely understandable and it’s also the reality that sustainability messaging has to work within. The challenge isn’t indifference, it’s relevance. The brands and organisations that will matter in this conversation are those that can connect the bigger picture to the everyday, making the stakes feel personal rather than abstract.
Come and find us
We’ll be at Reset Connect on 23–24 June at ExCeL London. So if you’re trying to figure out how to talk about this in a way that actually lands, we’d love to have that conversation in person.
Find out more about Reset Connect and our session right here
