Our Campaign for Change

We are on a mission – Mission Nutrition. With the help of nature’s nutrient powerhouses nuts, seeds and dried fruit, we want to enhance the diet quality and overall health of the nation.

We know that vitamins, minerals and fibre consumption is dreadfully low and not everyone is getting all they need in their daily diets, increasing the chance of chronic disease.

So, we asked ourselves a simple question: What impact does Nuts, Seeds & Dried Fruit have on the health of the nation? Leading to us commissioning a Whitepaper by Dr Max Gowland, in partnership with the British Nutrition Foundation to explore this and more.

Now it’s showtime, as we look to revamp the 5-a-day guidelines to include nuts & seeds and reassess the position of dried fruit already within the current 5-a-day guidelines – all for greater consumption of beneficial, health-enhancing nutrients.

We have now contracted the support of two government experts and former ministers to help guide us through this complex process. At the moment we are preparing to formally start the lobbying processes later this year. Since Christmas we have been connecting with targeted individuals to share our point of view, our plans and our ideas. The intention being that these discussions allow us to refine our lobbying stance.

Since Christmas we have reached out to a couple of dozen individuals including government officials. Two weeks ago Whitworths’ Commercial Director, Phil Gowland, was lucky enough to meet Baroness Richie at the House of Lords who was one of the members of the Lords Committee and review in to Health, Diet and Obesity (the report published to the government in November). The Baroness was very interested in our stance and ideas and will be submitting 6 questions to ministers on our behalf next week. These questions will all get a written response.

Mr Gowland has also met with two members of the EU Commission to discuss our plans and ideas.

Further discussions have also been happening including Sir Chris Witty, which we hope will turn in to further meetings.

In February and March we will have three expert round tables taking place hosted by the British Nutrition Foundation. These roundtables are intended to get expert consensus around many of our key points including a position on consumption recommendation of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. When this is concluded the BNF will write up the conclusions in an academic paper and we will use this output to formalise our position and ideas and begin formal lobbying and public awareness.