04/11/2025
🌱 Reflecting on last week’s incredible event: Food Health Network LIVE: Europe 2025 🌍
It was such an honour to speak at this brilliant event and to be part of a community that’s truly reimagining the future of food, health, and prevention.
The energy in the room was amazing. So many different perspectives came together, from soil science and nutrition research to free school meals, health tech, community education, retail innovation, lifestyle medicine and the NHS England. It was a powerful reminder that collaboration is key.
🥗 Key messages that stayed with us:
💡Food is central to both individual and population health. Telling people what to eat isn’t enough, real change needs knowledge, accessibility, consistency, and culturally relevant options.
💡 Prevention is everyone’s job. From clinicians to retailers to policymakers, every touchpoint can influence health behaviour.
💡 Real health equity depends on collaboration.No single sector can shift the system alone, it takes aligned effort and shared purpose.
🛒 Panel: Shaping the Future of Retailers in the Food as Medicine MovementIt was a privilege to moderate this conversation with:
Joanne Lunn – Health & Nutrition Lead, Waitrose & Partners
Sophia Thistlethwaite– Senior Nutritionist, Marks and Spencer
Launa Humphreys – Senior Category Manager for Food, Holland & Barrett
We explored how retailers are stepping into a proactive public health role to truly influence healthier lifestyles. What stood out most was the depth of work already happening across these leading retailers, from staff education and clearer labelling to healthy recipe tools, community cooking programmes, and nutrition-led product reformulation. They’re proving that the principles of Food as Medicine; prevention, education, collaboration, and accessibility can thrive in retail spaces too. I was so impressed with what is going on behind the scenes!
💬 Closing panel: Eat Clean, Stay Active, Be WellIt was a fantastic closing session with Dr Sunil Kumar FCAI FRSA FBSLM MAcadMEd Dip IBLM/BSLM and Hannah Belsham – Nuffield Health. I loved hearing about Nuffield Health’s partnership with Greener by Default, a brilliant example of aligning sustainability with long-term health outcomes. I also loved hearing about the different pillars of lifestyle medicine and about how healthspan is just as important as lifespan.I
It was wonderful to meet so many new professionals from different backgrounds all united by one shared mission:
✨ Creating a healthier, more equitable, prevention-focused future.
A huge thank you to everyone at Food Health LIVE for such a brilliant and forward-looking event. 🌿
