Prosperity 2030 UCL · IGP Prosperity 2030

Healthy Food Levy

Healthy people eat healthy food

Structural Measure · food, business

The health of the nation is substantially dependent on the availability of healthy and nutritious food. And while the National Food Service (NFS) represents a serious effort to improve food availability and quality, it still only provides for a small minority of overall food consumption.

What the Healthy Food Levy (HFL) does is fund the introduction of UK Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) to set standards for the nutritional content of food available through all channels. And the levy restores the **Food Standards Authority (FSA) **power to ensure high UK food standards and safety, clears inspection backlogs, and completes the Brexit food inspection regime as originally intended.

The HFL enables healthy living by introducing standards that allow consumers to have useful information about their food choices, and for society to recoup some of the costs of the most unhealthy foods.

Detail

The HFL replaces the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) starting in the third year of the Prosperity 2030 program because it will take a couple of years to set up the structures and systems to support it.

The Healthy Food Levy is an integral part of the National Food Service. The NFS depends on the UK Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) to set standards for the nutritional content of food available through all of its different channels, from school meals to meals available from participating venues. So it makes sense to migrate food quality taxation from a penalty tax to a supporting framework as the food services are rolled out.

At steady state, the HFL is expected to raise £1 billion a year, after allowing time for manufacturers to complete reformulation, compared to current SDIL revenues of £0.3 billion.

Published 18 May 2026