Scotland’s Good Food Nation Plan a good start, but fails to impress

On 27 June 2025, on the eve of summer recess for the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish government released The Proposed National Good Food Nation Plan for parliamentary scrutiny.

Publication of this first Plan, and subsequent progress reports, is required under the terms of the Good Food Nation Act for Scotland (2022), which Nourish Scotland was instrumental in campaigning for and winning. By law, the Plan must establish national outcomes, goals and metrics, accountable actions towards achievement of which will now be required from national government and from local authorities.

The Good Food Nation Act in Scotland was created explicitly as framework legislation to drive system change for health, fairness and sustainability in food and farming. As part of our own strategy review, the Sustain alliance is actively looking at what structural approaches, duties and responsibilities we should be championing in the national food strategy for UK national government, local authorities and public health bodies. Also, how we can use the law to drive food system change for health, sustainable farming, equity, climate and nature? Initial developments of implementation of the 2022 Good Food Nation Act in Scotland are therefore of great interest.

Looking at the Scottish Government’s first Good Food Nation Plan, Anna Chworow from Nourish Scotland comments (longer version available on the Nourish Scotland website):

“In terms of the broad direction of travel, here is a lot to celebrate. There is a clear alignment with the right to food in anticipation of legal incorporation in due course. The population health-related outcomes, targets and indicators are particularly well developed. They pay attention to nutrition as well as diet-related health conditions, have specific focus on inequalities and include measures for infants, older children and adults alike. In the broader picture there are some interesting indicators, including one looking at the total agricultural land area used to produce fruit and vegetables for human consumption."

“There big-ticket items are, of course, the metrics that could not be ignored: greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, food insecurity levels, diet-related illness. We have work to do on all those fronts. But it is uncanny how many of the other indicators are ones where the available metrics are already trending in the positive direction. There are also several that have little impact on the overall food system – such as the indicators which relate to consumer perceptions and self-reported behavioural changes, as opposed to measurable changes in the food system and environment.”

Meanwhile, there are many gaps – some of them fundamental. In particular, fostering a healthy food environment receives inadequate attention, with no progress indicators on food deserts, concentration of takeaways per head of population, or unhealthy food advertising in either physical or digital space. There is also a glaring omission of sustainability in relation to the food and drink sector; and of worker safety on sea and on land – industries notorious for disproportionate deaths and life-changing injuries.

The Scottish government’s Good Food Nation Plan will now undergo a period of parliamentary scrutiny, with opportunities to engage with Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and committees. 

Anna Chworow of Nourish Scotland concludes with a salutary note on the lack of ambition and citizen engagement to date in the Good Food Nation process, and a prompt to MSPs, civil society and citizens to step up and fill this gap:

“The transition to a Good Food Nation will not happen overnight – but if it is to happen at all, it will require leadership. Thus far the government has missed the opportunity to lead from the front – and so it creates a space for the MSPs, Committees, civil society and citizens to lead from behind.”

For our part, in June 2025, Sustain worked with the Food Foundation to run a roundtable bringing together policy experts from across the alliance to discuss what food system legislation we need. Presentations from Director of Nourish Scotland Pete Ritchie on the Good Food Nation Act, and from former Welsh Environment Minister Jane Davidson on the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, provided stimulating inspiration on what effective legal measures could be introduced or amended to drive UK-wide systems change. We will be involving Sustain alliance members in further developments of this important work in due course.