AQW 31585/22-27


Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim


Tabled Date: 19/09/2025
Answered On Date: 06/10/2025
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail how the Northern Ireland Food Strategy Framework aligns with his Department's initiatives on improving public health and nutrition.


Answer:
Officials from my Department have worked with DAERA colleagues on the Food Strategy Framework from the outset and have been members of the Food Programme Board since July 2021. We and other Board members have worked closely to align outcomes, themes, and actions across Departments to link with other strategies and to build synergies while avoiding duplication.
We welcomed the publication of Food Strategy Framework Action Plan 2025-2027 in May 2025, having worked in collaboration across Departments to include actions and outcomes which will deliver real change and improvements to public health and nutrition, while tackling overweight and obesity across the life course. These actions directly align with the overarching public health priorities in my Department’s forthcoming ‘Healthy Futures’ obesity strategic framework.
We are committed to delivering outcomes within the Food Strategy Framework which contribute to the Framework’s ‘Mission One: To use food to improve lifelong health and wellbeing’. Actions included in the Food Strategy Framework Action Plan 2025-2027 under this mission which link to My Department’s public health and nutrition goals include:
Addressing food inequalities, redistributing surplus food, and working across Departments to develop the ‘Right to Food’ guiding principle, as part of a suite of actions to tackle and alleviate food poverty.
Promoting healthy, nutritious eating in early years, childcare and nursery settings, implementing all aspects of the existing Food in Schools Programme, as well as taking forward actions to increase the uptake of free school meals, while also increasing the numbers of pupils taking a school meal, either free or paid.
Working with partners to implement nutritional standards in Health and Social Care, public sector and local council settings while evaluating implementation of nutritional standards for vending in public sector and local council settings.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is also a named delivery partner in the Northern Ireland Food Strategy Framework. The FSA’s work under the Framework is focused on helping to support food businesses to make the food environment healthier through reducing calories, saturated fat, sugar, and salt in the food they produce, sell, or serve, reducing portion size and providing nutritional information. These actions are closely aligned to the work that the FSA undertakes with my Department under the extant and forthcoming obesity strategic frameworks.