New Data: Which? Priority Places for Insulation Index
In November 2023 Which? released the Priority Places for Insulation Index which shows places around the UK which are most in need of insulation.
In partnership with Which? the Priority Places for Insulation Index data is now available to researchers via CDRC Data.
The index is novel because it incorporates both aspects of housing stock and household circumstances which exacerbate the need for insulation.
It is a composite index which considers the condition of properties in each area, as well as features of the local population including age, level of fuel poverty, and health conditions.
The index ranks geographical areas within each nation of the UK across eight different indicators relating to insulation needs and is produced by weighting and combining the eight indicators to construct an overall ranking of Priority Places for Insulation within each nation. It has been produced at three levels: local authorities, parliamentary constituencies and small local areas.
It was constructed using open data and web-scraped data from the publicly accessible Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) register for Northern Ireland as well as relevant sites where installers can be found or listed.
More Information on the Priority Places for Insulation Index
CDRC in Parliament – Fairness in the UK’s food supply chain
Earlier this month Dr Francesca Pontin, CDRC Research Data Scientist at the University of Leeds, gave evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on ‘Fairness in the food supply’.
Fran provided insight from CDRC-Leeds’ Priority Places for Food Index and the teams wider research. We asked her to share a little bit more about the index and some of the key insights from the committee:
About the Priority Places for Food Index
The Priority Places for Food Index (PPFI), developed last year in collaboration with Which?, identifies areas within the UK at risk of food insecurity.
Policymakers can use the interactive map to identify neighbourhoods most in need of support and to understand the main reasons that they need this support.
Transport is part of the problem, and the solution
Household access to a car can be a serious limitation for consumers when it comes to accessing affordable food – not only do they have difficulties reaching food retailers in general, but they are also unable to conveniently shop around for deals, choose cheaper food retailers or ‘bulk buy’ in a way that could minimise cost.
PPFI includes data on household car access and access and availability to public transport. The length of a journey via public transport is part of how we generate our ‘Accessibility to supermarket retail facilities’ data domain. Household access to a car is measured in the ‘Socio-economic barriers’ data domain.
Issues around transportation also look different whether you are in an urban or rural area. Increasing connectivity opens up consumer choice by making a variety of food retailers more accessible to larger portions of society.
Different solutions are needed for urban and rural areas
In rural locations, access to supermarkets often drives the risk of food insecurity. In these cases, meeting both transport need and availability (e.g. increasing local connectivity) would lower the risk of food insecurity.
Longer term, increasing the number of available supermarkets in rural areas would potentially minimise the distance needed to travel to reach those sources of food.
There is also an issue with rural food retailers potentially operating at a higher price point, especially where rural communities might rely significantly on convenience stores for the majority of their shopping. Mystery shopper research from Which? found supermarket-brand convenience stores do not stock budget-range groceries, though Morrisons has now committed to doing so in their Morrisons Daily convenience stores.
In urban areas, the primary drivers of food insecurity risk are typically socio-economic barriers. Shoppers may be able to access supermarkets more easily, but other markers of deprivation captured in the index, including income deprivation, fuel poverty and reliance on food ‘safety-nets’, limit their ability to purchase food.
Pushing health problems down the line
Not having access to adequate amounts of food or the right sources of food is not just a cost-of-living problem, it has far-reaching implications for the future burden placed on our health service.
Fran also highlighted that childhood attainment is one of the outcomes most likely to be impacted by food insecurity, as a lack of adequate nourishment for children makes it harder for them to concentrate in school.
A need for legislation
In October 2022 the Government introduced legislation which limits the sale of foods high in fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS) in key retail promotion locations within retail stores, over a certain size, selling food.
In this session the panel discussed how it is possible for legislation to drive change for businesses. Fran highlighted HFSS as an example of how sector-wide change can happen when it becomes a business priority, putting less burden on health and sustainability teams to make a business case for healthier and more sustainable product lines.
There is a clear need to respond to consumer concerns around food health, sustainability and pricing – and this is part of what PPFI and our ongoing work with Which? allows us to do – however Government legislation can provide an effective top-down approach to ensure businesses act.
The team are involved with the DIO-Food project, an academic evaluation of the impact of the HFSS legislation: whether it worked to reduce sales of HFSS items and whether it impacted communities equally. It will consider both the experience of consumers and retailers. This will allow us to continue making valuable suggestions to Government about what really works in retail settings.
Healthy start top-up vouchers and price incentives
The committee had a number of questions around price incentives on healthy products.
In response to these questions Fran highlighted research from the University of Leeds, in collaboration with IGD and Sainsbury’s in which analysis on a 2021 Healthy Start top-up scheme revealed that baskets redeeming a £2 top-up coupon purchased 13 more portions of fruit and vegetables compared to baskets where a voucher was not redeemed.
Fran also referenced a trial, undertaken in collaboration with IGD and Sainsbury’s which reduced the price of selected fruit and vegetables in stores across the country for four weeks and led to the number of promoted fruit and vegetables sold increasing by 78% during the intervention period.
Food sector data transparency
Academic research can only happen when data are made available for rigorous analysis.
Unfortunately, competition law and commercial sensitivity often limits what data retailers can share externally, including with researchers. Whilst the CDRC has worked hard to establish relationships with retailers to enable data sharing, there are still many challenges when it comes to sharing within the sector.
Whilst much of our work is with large retailers, we also know that smaller retailers such as independents and convenience stores can offer alternative insights. However, working with these retailers presents its own challenges, as they often do not have the internal resource to enable research development and relationships or to share data.
Ensuring food sector data transparency, for example through the Food Data Transparency Partnership would not only allow greater access to food data for analysis, but also create a non-competitive space where retailers could share learnings of what works to help customers. Legislation of this kind would level the playing field, and we would welcome convenience store retailers as part of that conversation.
Large overlap between food sustainability and cost-of-living initiatives
A recent trip to Good Food Oxfordshire, who are using the PPFI as a core metric in the Oxfordshire Food Strategy, highlighted how sustainability initiatives originally set up to minimise food waste have now had to pivot to also solving food insecurity during the cost-of-living crisis.
This has become a particular issue when large redistribution initiatives mean that surplus food is not being kept local but in fact being moved across the UK. Particularly relevant at the moment in light of the King’s The Coronation Food Project announcement, a project which aims to redistribute food surplus to the neediest areas.
It is becoming clear that sustainability initiatives alone are not sufficient to address food poverty, and that there needs to be greater attention paid to the barriers to accessing food, rather than the availability of food, either in retailers or in surplus.
A team of researchers from the Consumer Data Research Centre have been awarded an ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize in recognition of the work they are doing to improve access to healthy and sustainable diets for customers of major food retailers.
The Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics Team, which is led by Professor Michelle Morris, collaborated with IGD and major retailers, including Asda and Sainsbury’s, to analyse data from shopping transactions and loyalty cards, and test interventions aimed at promoting healthy and sustainable diets.
Insights from the team, which included Dr Stephen Clark, Dr Emily Ennis, Dr Vicki Jenneston and Dr Francesca Pontin, have benefited individual food retailers by delivering evidence-based research about what works and, crucially, what doesn’t when it comes to encouraging consumer healthy behaviours.
“We are delighted that our research has delivered real world impact and to be recognised as winners by ESRC in this way is brilliant. Our work in the Business and Enterprise category has delivered impact within business but importantly to communities that are most in need of support to access healthy, sustainable, and affordable food. This work been a result of effort from a diverse team, at the University of Leeds and our partners. We hope that it inspires others to play their part in research that makes a difference.”
Prof Michelle Morris explains: “Traditionally, people’s dietary habits have been recorded through surveys reporting what they have eaten, but this provided limited data to inform national policies. Retailers were reluctant to share more valuable data about shopping patterns due to commercial sensitivities. This project enabled us to build industry relationships and gain access to data sources, such as loyalty cards.”
The research started in 2017 with a single supermarket partner. In 2020, the team was invited to collaborate with IGD, whose Industry Nutrition Strategy group (INSG) members represent more than 11,500 UK food stores, and account for over 90% of take-home food sales.
The partnership enabled the researchers to run a series of in-store and online behaviour change trials with four UK food retailers. The team worked with supermarket partners to change the in-store environment, experimenting with signposting, product placement and incentivisation. The team then analysed transaction records to understand which changes positively impacted purchasing patterns.
Hannah Skeggs, Senior Health & Sustainable Diets Manager, IGD said of the partnership: “It has been a privilege for IGD to partner with the Consumer Research Data Centre to evaluate real-life trials in supermarkets across the UK. Winning this award is a fantastic credit to the teams’ hard work, innovative data products and exceptional collaboration. We look forward to continuing our partnership together with the ambition of making healthy and sustainable diets, easy and accessible for everyone.”
Informing retail strategies
The team’s insights have changed how and what products are available from retailers, as well as enabling retailers to make informed cost-benefit analyses and economic decisions around how best to support their customers.
A trial changing the placement of meat alternatives at Asda, for example, resulted in a decrease in sales. The company has committed to expanding their vegan range by approximately 50% and are exploring which interventions will influence shoppers to make more meat-free choices.
Beth Fowler, Nutrition & Health Strategy Manager at Asda, commented: “Our collaboration with Professor Morris and the Consumer Data Research Centre team has enabled Asda to test and understand the impact of merchandising on consumer food choice, in a real-world supermarket setting. Their expert insights were used to scope, shape, implement and evaluate the trial.
“Using the data and results from the trials we ran with Professor Morris’ team, we have been able to influence decision-making within the business to ensure our Plant Based range of alternatives to meat are accessible for customers.”
Shifting shopping patterns
The introduction of interventions that shift shopping patterns towards healthier diets means consumers have also benefited from the team’s research. The work led to sector wide transformations, providing insights to retailers on the effectiveness of behaviour-change trials that encourage healthy and sustainable diets, particularly for communities most in need.
For example, the team analysed how effective the Sainsbury’s Healthy Start voucher top-up scheme had been in supporting pregnant women and children with access to healthy nutrition. Analysis showed that shoppers increased the number of fruit and vegetables in their baskets by an average of 13 more portions and bought more products in line with the Eatwell Guide.
Nilani Sritharan, Group Head of Healthy & Sustainable Diets for Sainsbury’s explained: ‘Sainsbury’s experience of working with Michelle and her team has been excellent. They have pushed boundaries in how the food industry collaborates with academia and influenced business decisions within Sainsbury’s and choices available to our customers.
Using the data and results from the trials we ran with Michelle’s team, we have been able to influence commercial decisions within the business related to expanding the top-up scheme for Healthy Start Vouchers and the pricing of fruit and vegetables through Nectar Prices and Aldi Price Match.”
Future work
Through co-production of research, we have demonstrated to the retail sector the depth of academic insight available and shown academic researchers the value of industry expertise in delivering true and lasting real-world change.
Our research team’s reputation for robust data governance has made retailers feel confident in both sharing our insights and best practice across the sector and advocating for other retailers to be part of our collaboration.
This collaboration is ongoing, and we are excited about the possibility of future trials with current and new partners in the food system. In addition to trials the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics team will be using retail transaction data to evaluate the impact of nationals policies, such as the government legislation to restrict promotion of foods and non-alcoholic beverages high in saturated fat, salt and sugar.
Michelle discussed the role that access plays in food poverty and how policy makers can use the CDRC’s Priority Places for Food Index (developed in collaboration with Which?) to identify neighbourhoods that are most vulnerable to increases in the cost of living and which have a lack of accessibility to cheap, healthy, and sustainable sources of food.
Dr Effie Papargyropoulou and Prof Sara Gonzalez discussed how traditional markets and community-led food initiatives can help remove some of the barriers to food access and are supporting some of those communities struggling with food insecurity.
CDRC research team shortlisted for ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize
A team of researchers from the Consumer Data Research Centre have been announced as finalists in this year’s ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize, in recognition of the work they are doing to improve access to healthy and sustainable diets for customers of major food retailers.
The annual prize, now in its 11th year, recognises researchers who achieve outstanding economic or societal impact from their research.
The Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics Team, which is led by Professor Michelle Morris and includes Dr Emily Ennis, Dr Francesca Pontin, Dr Victoria Jenneson and Dr Stephen Clark, are one of two finalists in the Outstanding Business and Enterprise Impact category.
Professor Michelle Morris, Professor of Data Science for Food at the University of Leeds commented:
“I am very proud to lead such a brilliant team and for us to be included amongst such inspiring finalists for these Celebrating Impact Prizes.
Food is at the heart of some of the world’s greatest challenges and as a team we are driven to deliver impactful research that makes healthy and more sustainable diets available to all.
We couldn’t do this work without industry partners passionate about driving change, the support of the ESRC and University more widely – thanks to you all.”
Dr Emily Ennis, CDRC’s Research and Impact Manager welcomed news of the team’s recognition:
“CDRC was developed to use consumer data to provide unique insight into a diverse range of societal and economic challenges. This research is exactly this.
It’s exciting to see the team using these real-world data to deliver real-world impact: changing how businesses are run and the products they provide, in order to ensure UK consumers have access to affordable, healthy, and sustainable food.
Michelle and the team continue to grow their network and research power, and we’re so excited to be a part of where it goes next.”
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 15 November 2023, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
CDRC researchers to conduct first-ever evaluation of HFSS legislation as part of DIO-Food Project
In October 2022, legislation came into effect in England that restricts promotion of products High Fat, Sugar or Salt (HFSS) by in-store and online location.
Beginning a year on from the legislation’s implementation, a team of CDRC researchers led by Professor Michelle Morris, will run analysis using population-level supermarket transaction data provided by three different retailers to evaluate the impacts of HFSS legislation.
This analysis run as part of the DIO Food project, will be the first-ever evaluation of this legislation and comes ahead of proposed implementation in the devolved nations, providing a unique opportunity to conduct an analysis of the impacts for retailers ahead of any new policy changes across the UK.
The sales data provided by the retailers will be for stores selected across deciles of our Priority Places for Food Index (developed in collaboration with Which? in 2022) to allow us to investigate whether the legislation has impacted different communities equally.
The researchers will analyse the impacts of the implementation from a health and sustainability perspective, using dietary (Eatwell Guide) and environmental metrics developed with IGD and their Industry Nutrition Strategy Group (INSG).
The team will also use innovative data products created by CDRC’s Dr Fran Pontin (Eatwell algorithm) and Dr Victoria Jenneson (Nutrient Profile Model Calculator) in their analysis, providing insight to retailers that cannot be found elsewhere.
Prof Michelle Morris, School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds commented:
“In addition to the quantitative sales data work, we’ll also be doing some qualitative analysis through interviews and focus groups with different stakeholders, including policymakers, the retailers themselves and importantly members of the public.”
The qualitative work will be led by CDRC Research and Impact Manager, Dr Emily Ennis.
We are looking forward to learning more from this interdisciplinary, cross sector team of Morris, Jenneson, Pontin, Ennis and Dr Alison Fildes from the School of Psychology at University of Leeds alongside retailers, the IGD and wider DIO Food team.
More about the DIO Food Project
This pilot will be run as part of the Diet and Health Inequalities (DIO Food) project at the University of Aberdeen – The goal of the DIO Food project is to identify how we can provide timely evidence-based research and commentary from those facing diet and health inequalities. The main focus of the project is working with vulnerable groups (early years and people with low income) to tackle the cost-of-living crisis to give timely policy directives.
DIO Food is an add on research activity to the Food Insecurity in people living with Obesity (FIO Food) which aims to provide actionable evidence for policy on retail strategies to address dietary inequalities in people living with obesity and food insecurity, to support sustainable and healthier food choices in the UK food system.
The CDRC Priority Places for Food team were invited to the House of Commons earlier this week in order to share their work on food insecurity.
The event, ‘Tackling the Cost of Food Crisis’, was set up to share new research, led by Which?, on the availability of budget range options in small and large supermarket stores, and to launch a new film by The Food Foundation highlighting the lived experiences of those living in the areas of highest food insecurity.
CDRC’s Priority Places for Food Index (developed last year in collaboration with Which?) emphasises that food (in)security is determined both by access to food and the obstacles blocking access to that food. As a result, this event brought together policymakers, MPs, charity organisations and those with lived experiences of food insecurity and diet-related ill health, with the joint objectives of working together to improve access to affordable food and to remove the social barriers currently limiting access to that food.
The Priority Places for Food Index demonstrates that access to supermarkets plays an important part in the UK’s food security. Good access to supermarkets includes both online access (including availability of online delivery as well as the likelihood of individuals in a particular location to shop online) as well as in-person access (including proximity, travel time, and travel options to supermarkets).
Which? calls on supermarkets to do more
Which? took this research further, by exploring what choices consumers have if they have limited access to larger supermarkets and need to shop in smaller stores. Their research involved sending a team of mystery shoppers into 123 different-sized branches of Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco across the UK to assess the availability of a range of essential budget groceries.
Each shopper was armed with a list of around 29 different basic budget groceries to find in each store, and the results show that those core budget items were almost all available in larger stores, and almost all unavailable in smaller stores.
The shopping list used by Which? was developed in collaboration with CDRC researchers, and the outcomes of Which?’s research emphasised that having access to supermarkets was not always a guarantee that consumers could access affordable food. In fact, the items available in different-sized stores are not configured to cater to the areas in which those stores are located, but in fact based on store size (with a larger range of budget items available in larger stores, not areas of greater need).
Which? have called on retailers to do more to tackle food insecurity by ensuring budget ranges are available in smaller stores, using the Priority Places for Food Index as an example of how to determine which areas in the UK need access to affordable food most urgently. You can sign their #AffordableFoodForAll campaign here.
The Food Foundation – Sharing lived experiences
The powerful and emotional film launched by The Food Foundation focused on the lived experience of Melissa, who lives in Solihull, and who describes how difficult it is to feed her children during the cost of living crisis.
The Food Foundation used the Priority Places for Food Index to determine an area of particularly high food insecurity – Birmingham – and in the video, uses the expertise of GP Dr Ewan Hamnett to highlight the long-lasting health implications of food insecurity for individuals and, more long-term, the additional stress health inequalities are likely to place on the health and social care systems in future.
Alongside the launch of this video, the Food Foundation have made demands on both retailers and Government to ensure everyone can survive the cost of living crisis and eat well.
In particular, The Food Foundation called for the expansion and strengthening of the healthy start voucher and free school meal schemes.
The Priority Places for Food Index includes the eligibility and uptake data for these schemes. You can read more about the work CDRC has done previously on free school meals here, and read also how Dr Michelle Morris’s work with retailers has evidenced the value in expanding the healthy start voucher scheme.
What happens next?
The event was a reminder to all attendees that the cost-of-living crisis and its impacts are not going away any time soon, and that in order to effect change we need to get a clear picture of the extent of the problem.
The combined effect of the Priority Places for Food Index, Which?’s secret shopper research, and the accounts of lived experiences provided via The Food Foundation provide the evidence necessary to prompt action, with many attendees at the event signing the declaration on affordable food put forward jointly by Which? and The Food Foundation.
Furthermore, guests at the event were able to spend time using the Priority Places for Food Index, exploring how they as individuals or organisations can use it to develop targeted interventions to improve food security.
Which? also used Priority Places data to provide constituency-level evidence packs for the MPs in attendance, placing the evidence of the levels of food insecurity and contributing factors to that insecurity into the hands of decisionmakers.
Journalist and Radio 4 presenter Sheila Dillon, who chaired the event, said that it was hard not to be moved by the video created by The Food Foundation, and on Twitter noted that coming together for the event – with representation from both the Conservative and Labour parties – gave her hope that ‘democracy might be working’.
Dr Emily Ennis, Research and Impact Manager, Consumer Data Research Centre (Leeds)
We have been working with Wejo to make connected vehicle data available for academic research purposes.
We have today launched a new dataset, supplied by Wejo, which contains GPS trajectories for around 50,000 vehicles during the month of July, representing over 1.8 million vehicle journeys and over 400 million individual records. An observation is available every 3 seconds on average during each journey.
The data contains a journey identifier, timestamp, longitude and latitude coordinates, as well as additional data fields for vehicle speed and bearing. The data is of high quality, with GPS records for every three seconds on average. This enables the successful implementation of map-matching algorithms as well as the identification of vehicle stops as well as periods of acceleration and deceleration.
This is one of the first times such a detailed and in-depth dataset detailing connected vehicle trajectories has been made available for academic research purposes.
How can supermarket delivery vehicle routing be optimised?
Supermarkets must transport large quantities of stock from depots to many different stores on a daily basis. It is important to deliver this stock efficiently, in order to minimise both transport costs and carbon emissions. This project aimed to investigate methods to optimise the routing of supermarket delivery vehicles. The project used the most basic delivery strategy, by which only one store is serviced during each trip from the depot, as a benchmark for comparison with the optimised delivery vehicle routing solutions.
Data and methods
The delivery vehicle routing optimisation was implemented using integer programming. The optimisation formulation was applied to a group of 81 stores which are all service by a single depot. For large groups of stores, the number of potential routes which a delivery vehicle can take is prohibitively large to be solved within a reasonable timeframe. Therefore, large groups of stores must be divided into smaller groups, based on location, and the optimisation solved separately for each group. Analysis of group sizes found that the groups of stores should contain 10 stores or fewer. As such, the 81 stores which were investigated were divided into nine groups of nine stores. This allowed the optimisation for all groups of stores to be solved within a relatively short time frame.
Key findings
The delivery vehicle routing problem was optimised for the nine groups of stores with 100 randomised sets of demand. It was found that the optimisation reduced the total required travel distance, when compared with the most basic delivery strategy.
Figure 1 shows the total travel distance required against the total demand for each group of stores, with the data coloured by the total number of trips required for each optimisation solution. For some groups, e.g. Groups 2 and 3, the data appears to be highly clustered, with each cluster representing how many trips were required by each solution. For other groups, e.g. Groups 5 and 6, the data doesn’t appear to be clustered. For groups showing data which is clustered, there is little or no overlap in the total required travel distance between solutions requiring different numbers of trips. Conversely, for groups which do not show clustered data, there is significant overlap in the total travel distance between solutions requiring different numbers of trips.
It was found that groups of stores for which the stores were close to one another, relative to the depot, produced highly clustered data, as each additional trip from the depot and back required by the solution increased the total travel distance by a significant proportion. Whereas, groups for which the stores were not as close to one another, relative to the depot, did not produce clustered data as each additional trip from the depot and back increased the total travel distance by a smaller proportion.
Figure 1. Travel distance vs demand for each group
Value of the research
This project has demonstrated a method to optimise delivery vehicle routing which can reduce the distance travelled by delivery vehicles significantly, when compared with the most basic delivery strategy and provides a valuable proof of concept study. The methods investigated in this project may be developed further by WM Morrisons Supermarkets in order to optimise delivery vehicle routing, which could help to reduce both transport costs and carbon emissions.
Quote from project partner
This 6-month research project provided an interesting and insightful investigation into optimisation approaches for delivery vehicle routing. I found the collaboration with Jacob and the wider project team valuable and would welcome the opportunity to work with LIDA on other projects in the future.
Insights
Optimisation of delivery vehicle routing can reduce transport costs and carbon emissions.
Dividing large groups of stores into multiple, smaller groups allows the optimisation to be solved more efficiently.
Research theme
Urban analytics
Statistical and mathematical methods
People
Jacob van Alwon – Data Scientist, Leeds Institute for Data Analytics.
Jon Ward – Lecturer in Mathematics, University of Leeds.
Areas most at risk of food insecurity in the cost of living crisis identified by CDRC and Which?
In a groundbreaking new study researchers from the Consumer Research Data Centre at the University of Leeds and Which? have identified the places around the UK where households are most at risk in the cost of living crisis and likely to be in need of extra support to access affordable, healthy and sustainable food.
The CDRC team, led by Dr Michelle Morris, and the consumer champion developed the Priority Places for Food Index as part of Which?’s national campaign to urge supermarkets to support consumers through the cost-of-living crisis.
The index uses data across a range of relevant dimensions to rank local areas by the likelihood of the people living there needing support.
The researchers considered factors such as deprivation, poor access to affordable food, having no large supermarkets nearby, a lack of online shopping deliveries or circumstances such as no car access making it difficult to shop around. All of these factors can make it difficult for people to find healthy and affordable food.
Michelle Morris, Associate Professor Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics, University of Leeds said: “With so many people in the UK already suffering from food insecurity and the cost of living crisis making that much worse, we need to do all that we can to support those most in need to access affordable, healthy and sustainable foods.
Our interactive map makes it easy to identify neighbourhoods most in need of support and highlights the main reasons that they need this support, recognising that one size does not fit all and that tailored help is required.”
“We will be engaging widely with the food industry and policy makers to help them use the tool to help our communities, both nationally and locally. Some of our local communities in Bradford have been identified within the top 20 Priority Places across the UK, which is very worrying.”
Which? – Affordable Food For All
Which? are using the index as part of its newly launched Affordable Food For All campaign, and have created a 10-point plan to help supermarkets provide the support people around the country desperately need in order to feed themselves through the ongoing crisis.
Sue Davies, Which? Head of Food Policy explained: “We know that millions of people are skipping meals through the worst cost of living crisis in decades but our new research tells us where around the UK support is most urgently needed.
The big supermarkets have the ability to take action and make a real difference to communities all around the UK. That’s why we’re calling on them to ensure everyone has easy access to budget food ranges that enable healthy choices, can easily compare the price of products to get the best value and that promotions are targeted at supporting people most in need.”
Priority places across the UK
Analysis of the Index shows that overall, seven in 10 UK Parliamentary constituencies have at least one area in need of urgent help accessing affordable food – but there are 16 constituencies across England and Wales for which at least three-quarters of the constituency are at risk.
Within England there is a large variation in where priority places are located across regions. The region with the greatest frequency of priority places is the North East, although because this is a small region then there are more priority places in Yorkshire and the Humber, the West Midlands and the North West in absolute terms. There are relatively few priority places in London, the South East and the South West, although in the latter there is a concentration in Cornwall.
In Wales, the highest concentration of areas at high risk during the food crisis is in the Valleys where proximity to a large supermarket or access to online deliveries may be very poor. Wales has a higher proportion of rural places where accessing affordable food is an issue than England and Scotland.
In Scotland, the places in highest need of support are in the Central Belt, according to the Which? and CDRC index, but there is also a notable concentration in and around Dundee where there is relatively poor access to online food deliveries and people are more likely to be suffering from fuel poverty and on a low income.
Northern Ireland has the most even geographical spread of areas in need of support accessing affordable food. However, there is a noticeably greater concentration in parts of south-west Belfast and in and around Derry/Londonderry.
The Priority Places for Food Index is a composite index formed of data compiled across seven different dimensions relating to food insecurity for the four nations in the UK. It is constructed using open data to capture complex and multidimensional aspects of food insecurity.
Building on the CDRC e-Food Desert Index (EFDI), but with additional domains relating to fuel poverty and family food support, the goal of the Priority Places for Food Index is to identify neighbourhoods that are most vulnerable to increases in the cost of living and which have a lack of accessibility to affordable, healthy, and sustainable sources of food.
