The Policy Priesthood, Part II: The NGO Smoking Gun. How Calls to Exclude Industry Expose a Deeper Problem in Food Policymaking
A recent editorial in The Grocer from the Food Ethics Council represents a dangerous fantasy masquerading as democratic reform. The call to exclude food companies from policy discussions reveals not principled governance but a fundamental misunderstanding of how effective regulation works. More concerning is the organisation's own position: wielding considerable influence whilst demanding businesses operate under transparency requirements to which it refuses to submit itself.
This phenomenon extends beyond one organisation's advocacy. As we explored previously, a new policy priesthood has emerged in British food governance: activist academics and advocacy charities who position themselves as disinterested experts whilst systematically working to exclude business perspectives from policymaking. The Food Ethics Council's editorial exemplifies this approach, where commercial stakeholders are cast as corrupting influences rather than essential participants. Yet activist organisations themselves wield extraordinary influence on policy formation, exercising power that far exceeds their claims of marginalisation.
The argument runs that corporate lobbying comes at the cost of citizen voices. This framing is seductive in its simplicity. It is also comprehensively wrong.
Policies developed without industry input do not protect consumers. They fail them. When regulators design rules without understanding operational realities, compliance costs spiral, innovation stagnates, and the gap between policy intent and outcomes grows cavernous. Overly prescriptive regulations that smaller businesses cannot afford create market concentration benefiting the largest players activists claim to oppose, crushing competition that keeps markets dynamic and prices reasonable.
The Food Foundation's finding that Defra ministers met with food businesses 40 times more often than food NGOs is presented as evidence of corporate capture. A more rational interpretation: ministers responsible for an industry worth over £100 billion meet frequently with the sector they regulate. One might call this responsible governance.
What this obscures is the extraordinary influence activist organisations wield through other channels, including some that generate funding from food firms in ‘business forums’ whilst demanding businesses be excluded from policy discussions. When you are funded partly by the industry you critique, is that not the conflict of interest they claim to abhor?
The language on their websites argues that corporate concentration means researchers explore corporate rather than public interests, and that with too much power concentrated in too few hands, the industrial food system can never be fair. This frames the entire food manufacturing sector as inherently problematic rather than offering balanced analysis.
When the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition reviewed ultra-processed foods, activist groups accused it of being compromised by industry influence. Any input from those who understand food production is automatically suspect, whilst activist organisations are beyond reproach. This demonstrates the disproportionate power these groups wield in framing public debate from positions of considerable policy influence, and how policy outcomes are increasingly being shaped upstream, through public belief, narrative framing and perceived legitimacy, long before formal consultation or legislation begins. So by the time industry is invited to the table, the boundaries of what is acceptable have often already been set.
Citizen voices are already amplified through professional advocacy organisations with sophisticated media operations. The Food Foundation partnered with Defra to ensure citizens shape the Food Strategy. Yet these citizens are guided by organisations with predetermined outcomes, selected through unrepresentative processes. This is significant policy influence dressed as grassroots participation.
The Citizen Advisory Council model is championed as the solution. But who selects these citizens? Who frames the questions? Who interprets conclusions? Organisations pursuing specific policy agendas. This is not democracy, it’s manufactured consensus.
The uncomfortable question: if transparency is paramount, why are these organisations not subject to the same lobbying disclosure requirements demanded from businesses? When they meet ministers, submit policy recommendations, and mobilise networks to influence opinion, this is lobbying. Yet it is presented as public interest advocacy. The asymmetry reveals the extent of activist influence in shaping the regulatory environment.
The fundamental flaw is assuming that removing industry produces better outcomes. Evidence suggests the opposite. When politicians design food policy without those who must implement it, they create laws that sound progressive but deliver regressive results. Sugar taxes disproportionately burden low-income families. Packaging regulations advantage industrial-scale producers over artisanal makers. Marketing restrictions entrench incumbents whilst preventing innovative challengers from reaching consumers.
The claim is made that industry influence and interference waters down regulations. But whose favour should policies serve? Activist organisations with no responsibility for feeding millions affordably? Academics whose models do not account for supply chain realities? These groups exercise substantial influence over policy formation, far beyond what their claims of marginalisation suggest.
The food system is complex, encompassing farming, manufacturing, logistics, retail and millions of livelihoods. It must balance nutrition, affordability, sustainability, preferences, viability and trade. Suggesting this can be governed by excluding operational expertise is not principled. It is reckless.
When vested interests are accused of calling the shots, this overlooks that these groups also represent vested interests, just different ones. They are advocacy organisations with funding streams, political agendas and ideological commitments. Their influence on policy formation is substantial. They should participate alongside, not instead of, the businesses they seek to regulate.
The tobacco comparison which frequently appears in anti-industry advocacy is instructive. Most food products, properly consumed, are not harmful. Manufacturing processes that extend shelf life, ensure safety and improve affordability are not analogous to engineering addiction. Conflating food production with tobacco is intellectually dishonest scaremongering designed to justify exclusionary policies.
The question of whether businesses will choose transparency deserves reflection back at activist organisations. Will they acknowledge their lobbying activities and submit to equivalent transparency requirements? Will they recognise the substantial, disproportionate influence they already wield over policy formation?
The path forward requires genuine transparency from all stakeholders. Industry should disclose meetings, positions and funding. But so should NGOs, think tanks and advocacy groups. Transparency obligations applying equally to all actors would reveal the true extent of activist power in shaping food governance.
What we need is better designed participation, with consultation processes that genuinely incorporate diverse perspectives. Evidence requirements that do not privilege academic studies over operational expertise. And honest acknowledgement that effective regulation requires understanding both the problem and the systems through which solutions must operate.
When policymakers design regulations without understanding the businesses they regulate, consumers pay through higher costs, reduced choice and unintended consequences. When activist organisations claim moral authority whilst exercising substantial political influence disproportionate to their democratic mandate, we get policy theatre rather than substance.
Corporate lobbying requires robust oversight. But the solution is not exclusion. It is transparency, accountability and genuine multi-stakeholder engagement where all parties, including activist organisations, acknowledge their interests, disclose their influence, and submit to equivalent scrutiny.
If these organisations genuinely believed in transparency and democratic policymaking, they should welcome industry voices whilst advocating better disclosure from everyone, themselves included. Instead, they advocate for one set of vested interests replacing another. The reality is that activist organisations already exercise disproportionate, outsized influence over government policy and decision-making. Demanding that industry step back would only entrench this imbalance further.
For industry, the risk is not simply exclusion from formal policymaking, but the long term erosion of legitimacy in the public arena where policy is now effectively shaped. When advocacy groups succeed in defining the moral terms of debate, technical arguments, compliance and transparency come too late to restore influence.
The choice is not between corporate influence and citizen empowerment. It is between inclusive, transparent policymaking which recognises complexity, and exclusionary posturing that privileges ideology over outcomes whilst obscuring the substantial power activist organisations already wield.
Does this feel relevant to you? Get in touch.
