Small Product Swaps Could Deliver Big Health and Sustainability Gains, Oxford Study Finds

A new study from the University of Oxford suggests that some of the most powerful levers for improving the healthiness and environmental sustainability of the food supply may sit not with consumers, but with the companies that decide which products end up on supermarket shelves. Published in the journal Nature Food, the research examined the products sold in the United Kingdom by 44 major food and beverage manufacturers, a group that together accounts for roughly half of the UK food retail market. By scoring each product for both nutrition and sustainability per 100 grams, the researchers were able to map, in unprecedented detail, how much room for improvement exists within the existing portfolios of the companies that feed the nation.

The central finding is striking: similar products made by different manufacturers can vary enormously in their nutritional and environmental profiles. A ready meal produced by one company might score far worse on both counts than a broadly comparable product sold by a rival. This variation matters because it means that the differences are not dictated by the category itself. If one manufacturer can produce a more nutritious and more sustainable version of a given food, then others in the same category can plausibly do the same. The gap between the best and worst performers within a product type represents, in effect, an untapped reservoir of public health and environmental benefit.

To quantify what could be gained from closing that gap, the authors modelled a scenario in which manufacturers replaced some of their least nutritious and least sustainable products with alternatives scoring closer to the average for their category. The results showed significant potential for improvement across the board. More remarkably, for many manufacturers, more than half of the total achievable improvement could be secured by reformulating or replacing just 10 percent or less of their product line. In other words, a relatively small number of targeted changes could deliver the majority of the benefit, a finding that reframes portfolio reform as a tractable, near-term opportunity rather than a distant aspiration.

The study is, according to its authors, the first of its kind to assess the capacity of food and beverage manufacturers to support both nutrition and environmental sustainability through changes within their existing product portfolios. Lead author Eleanor Hammond, who conducted the research while working at the University of Oxford, explained that the analysis was designed around what companies could realistically do without inventing entirely new product categories. That focus on the existing portfolio is what gives the findings their practical force: the improvements identified do not depend on breakthrough technologies or consumer behaviour change, but on decisions about which products to keep, reformulate, or retire.

The distribution of improvement potential across companies is far from uniform. The researchers found that two well-known British supermarkets, whose own brands collectively account for 28.9 percent of the sales value in the analysis, have some of the largest scope to improve their scores for both environment and nutrition. Broad product ranges spanning many categories give these retailers many opportunities to lift weaker performers toward the standard set by their better products. By contrast, manufacturers with narrow product ranges, such as snack and energy drink producers, generally have less room to improve their scores, since their portfolios offer fewer substitution possibilities and their categories may already sit near the average for the market.

Co-author Dr Michael Clark, Associate Professor in Sustainable Food Solutions at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, framed the findings in terms of the wider transformation that food systems must undergo in the coming decades. If food systems are to transition to more nutritious and environmentally sustainable outcomes, he noted, food manufacturers are going to have to change the products they sell. That change, he argued, can either be driven by the manufacturers themselves or imposed on them by government policy. The study’s results, he said, show that manufacturers can get a head start on this necessary transition by making small changes to their product portfolios today, rather than waiting for regulation to compel action.

The timing of the research is significant. The UK Government is currently under pressure to bring forward legislation requiring mandatory reporting on the nutrition of UK food and beverage products, and the study offers a template for how such reporting could work in practice. According to Dr Clark, the study demonstrates how the UK Government could monitor both sustainability and nutritional outcomes together, rather than treating them as separate policy problems. He added that the approach could also be used for ESG reporting and could support regulatory frameworks such as the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires large companies to disclose detailed information about their environmental and social impacts.

Methodologically, the study is an observational analysis rather than an intervention trial, but its scale gives it considerable weight. Assigning per-100-gram scores for both nutrition and sustainability to the full product ranges of 44 major manufacturers required a systematic assessment of a large share of the UK food retail market, covering approximately 50 percent of sales. Because the scoring was applied consistently across products and companies, the resulting variation cannot be dismissed as an artefact of differing assessment methods. The consistency of the measurement is precisely what allows the authors to compare improvement potential across manufacturers with very different portfolio structures, from diversified retailers to specialist snack producers.

The implications extend beyond the United Kingdom. Food manufacturers everywhere face mounting pressure from investors, regulators, and consumers to demonstrate progress on health and sustainability, yet many have struggled to identify where meaningful change is possible without disrupting their businesses. This study suggests a concrete answer: audit the portfolio, identify the products that fall furthest below category averages on nutrition and sustainability, and prioritise those for reformulation or replacement. Because the analysis shows that a small fraction of products carries a large share of the improvement potential, the approach offers companies a way to achieve substantial, measurable gains with limited commercial disruption. For policymakers, the same data infrastructure could underpin monitoring schemes that hold manufacturers accountable over time.

What makes the findings resonate is their simplicity. The debate over food system transformation is often dominated by visions of radical change, from novel proteins to wholesale dietary shifts, all of which face long timelines and uncertain adoption. This research points to something more immediate: the products that companies already make, and the gaps between them. If a ready meal from one manufacturer can be substantially more nutritious and sustainable than a similar product from another, then the knowledge and capability to produce better food already exists within the industry. The task, as the Oxford team frames it, is to close those gaps deliberately and quickly, whether through voluntary corporate action or through the reporting requirements now being considered by governments. With more than half the potential improvement available from changing just a tenth of a product line, the study makes a compelling case that the food industry’s next big contribution to public and planetary health may come not from new inventions, but from smarter choices about the products it already sells.

Subject of Research: Nutritional and environmental sustainability scoring of UK food and beverage manufacturers' product portfolios

Article Title: Food & drink manufacturers can greatly improve sustainability and healthiness of their products with small changes – Oxford research

Article References: Food & drink manufacturers can greatly improve sustainability and healthiness of their products with small changes – Oxford research. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: food manufacturers, sustainability, nutrition, University of Oxford, Nature Food, UK food retail, product portfolios, ESG reporting, food policy, ready meals, supermarkets, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive