Can Consumers Drive Sustainable Food Systems, or Must Companies Lead?
The food system is a complex system. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a food system is sustainable when it delivers food and nutrition security while protecting the economic, social and environmental bases for future generations.
People are increasingly encouraged to make healthier and more sustainable food choices. However, these choices are not simply individual decisions. They are shaped by culture, geography, climate, income, infrastructure and public policy. The ability to make healthier and more sustainable choices also depends on whether such food is affordable, available and visible. Our choices are closely connected to an environment shaped by supermarkets, prices, advertising, transport systems and corporate supply chains.
This brings us to an important point: what looks like an individual choice is partly a system outcome.
How are Food Systems Connected to Health?
According to the FAO’s The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026, animal-source foods and starchy staples tend to cost less in countries with higher GDP per capita, while fruits and vegetables tend to cost more.
Higher costs of inputs such as electricity and agricultural labour can increase the price of many food groups, particularly vegetables.
The FAO report also shows that logistics are an important factor in food costs, and that better roads and distribution can help reduce them. One particularly interesting finding is that a 10% improvement in the logistics performance index is associated with a 5.4% reduction in the cost of a healthy diet. This is especially relevant for remote and underserved areas, where poor infrastructure can restrict access to food, particularly perishable products such as fruits and vegetables.
The FAO also highlights the importance of agricultural investment in making healthy food more affordable. Historically, agricultural research has focused more on staple cereals than on fruits, vegetables and legumes. Agricultural support has also favoured commodities such as grains, sugar, dairy, beef and oil crops. These investments have helped make certain foods cheaper and encouraged infrastructure and markets to develop around them. This raises another question: could greater investment in fruits and vegetables help make healthy diets more affordable?
The Hidden Costs of Food
However, making healthy food affordable is not enough. We also need to consider the environmental costs behind it. Social change and development, including population and economic growth, have shaped the modern food system, alongside a growing demand for faster and more convenient food. But this convenience can carry health, environmental and social costs.
The same FAO report highlights that food systems contribute to climate change and environmental degradation, while climate and environmental changes can in turn affect food production and make food systems more vulnerable. Changes in production, processing, packaging and distribution have added to the pressure on natural resources. Extreme heat, flooding, water stress and biodiversity loss can further disrupt production and increase food prices.
Sustainability cannot be measured only by whether food is healthy or locally produced. A policy that increases access to perishable food may require refrigeration, packaging or additional transport. Similarly, local production may support communities, but “local” does not automatically mean lower emissions or a lower environmental impact. Each intervention must therefore be assessed across its environmental, social and economic consequences.
The relevant question is not only whether food is cheap at the point of purchase, or even whether it is considered healthy, but also who pays the costs that are not reflected in the price: workers, communities, public health systems and the environment.
The Role of Companies in Supply Chains
Large food companies have considerable influence over what consumers can buy, how products are formulated, how suppliers produce ingredients and how sustainability is communicated.
However, corporate progress should not be assessed only through direct operations. A company may report improvements in its restaurants while providing limited information about emissions, water use and environmental impacts across its supply chain.
The FAIRR and Ceres assessment reported progress among six major fast-food companies on climate targets, but also identified weaknesses in supply-chain transparency, particularly around water and animal-protein supply chains. It found that more than 90% of the companies’ emissions came from Scope 3 sources, making supplier practices especially important. Although ESG commitments have been extended to supplier requirements, the assessment found that coverage of emissions and their impacts remains limited.
This reinforces the importance of ESG commitments that include specific supplier requirements, independent verification, set deadlines and openly shared results, rather than only broad promises made at corporate level.
Consumer, Companies and Governments
Could changes in mindset and growing concern about healthier and more sustainable food push companies to adapt?
Today, there is much more information about the need to reduce certain food components and their potential harms. Growing consumer awareness may encourage companies to adapt their products and communicate changes through labels such as “reduced sugar” or “free from”.
Companies have also changed or tested their formulations in response to customers’ concerns. Just as nutritional information can influence purchasing decisions, showing a product’s environmental footprint might also influence consumer behaviour. One example is the FAO’s Take a Bite – Climate Food Flashcards, which present nutritional information alongside environmental indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions and water use. Could similar information on food packaging encourage consumers to make more sustainable choices?
In reality, the food system shapes the choices available to consumers, while collective choices, expectations and demand can also influence the market. Companies, meanwhile, have power over supply chains, production practices, transparency and what ultimately becomes available.
The question of whether consumer demand or corporate change comes first resembles a chicken-and-egg problem, but the relationship is better understood as a feedback loop. Consumer demand can encourage companies to reformulate products, improve labelling and develop new products. Companies, however, shape demand through pricing, advertising, product placement and availability. Governments influence both sides by regulating markets, supporting healthier production and requiring transparency.
These actors do not have equal power. It is unrealistic to place the main responsibility on individuals when companies control much of the food environment and governments set many of the rules within which markets operate.
Even so, consumers should not wait passively for change. Individual choices can signal demand, support responsible companies and contribute to cultural change. But meaningful ESG progress requires companies and governments to change the conditions that make sustainable choices possible. The best approach is a collaborative one, in which consumer pressure for corporate responsibility and public policy reinforce one another.
