Many Brits eat out regularly and tend to eat less healthily when they do. Could public diners help to provide balanced diets and more?

The government’s recent Ideas for Change campaign received some unusual submissions earlier this year, which called for the NHS to partner with food and drink chains like Wetherspoons and IKEA cafes; this comes just a few years after a jokey government petition calling for the nationalisation of Wetherspoons and Greggs.

While these eateries aren’t known for always providing the healthiest fare, these tongue-in-cheek proposals showcase an idea that is gaining traction in serious food policy circles: government-subsided dining. In 2024, Nourish Scotland called for the creation of public diners to improve health.

Public diners are restaurants or canteens that are wholly or partially funded by the public sector.

At first glance, this seems outlandish. With public services already stretched, why should governments spend money feeding the masses? Don’t charities - like food banks and community kitchens - already offer some of the benefits?

But this idea isn’t new. In the 1940s, government-run canteens cropped up around the country serving hot meals for low prices. Dubbed British Restaurants, these enterprises fed hungry civilians displaced by WWII bombing. This wasn’t a ‘free lunch’: meals were cheap but canteens had to be financially viable. British Restaurants were inspired by earlier WWI era National Kitchens, where the government expressly required self-sufficiency to “avoid the taint of charity”.

Government-subsidised eateries might seem unlikely nowadays, until you consider that for a select few they already exist. In July 2024, North Paddington Food Bank launched an awareness campaign about the 17 loss-making subsidised outlets within the UK parliamentary estate, providing (often gourmet) food and drink to parliamentarians. The cost to the public purse is £7 million, and the campaign calls to redirect these funds towards efforts to tackle food insecurity.

Subsidising a handful of restaurants isn’t comparable to funding a large-scale service as a pillar of preventative health - after all, many large organisations offer their employees subsidised canteens. However, there are examples of international governments subsidising cheap, nutritious food for everyone.

Peruvian community kitchens, Comedores Populares, emerged from a 1970s grassroots social movement. The cheap meals served are now partly supported by the Peruvian government to ensure balanced diets. They’ve hosted research trials to increase healthy eating, and similar initiatives exist across South and Central America.

Closer to home in Poland, Bar Mleczny, or milk bars, were established in the nineteenth century and grew in popularity under the Soviet regime. These cafeterias still provide traditional, affordable dishes, with some dishes costing the equivalent of just £2.30, and the Polish government continues to subsidise them.

Nourish Scotland’s report comes at a time when public health is threatened by rising obesity, with recent analysis estimating that our unhealthy diets cost the UK economy £98 billion annually.

The out-of-home food sector (eg restaurants, cafes, and takeaways) makes up an important part of the food environment that shapes our diets; however, it is likely that this sector is contributing to our growing obesity crisis. Nesta analysis found that two-thirds of meals purchased out-of-home exceed the recommended calorie intake for a meal and 20% of meals are over half the recommended daily intake.

The issue is that eating out is no longer a rare treat. In the UK, around 60% of the population consumes food from outside the home at least once a week. However, while food cooked at home is typically less calorie-dense than out-of-home meals, even this often falls short of being considered healthy. Combined, this means that, on average, adults in the UK consume 200-300 excess calories a day.

Public diners offering desirable, healthier meals at a competitive price could be part of the solution. Not only do they have the potential to provide a potentially healthier type of out-of-home meal, but they could also attract people who currently eat at home by addressing major barriers to healthy eating, such as the high cost of nutritious food, limited time or knowledge to prepare healthy meals, and the prevalence of cheap, unhealthy options. These community spaces could also offer valuable social eating opportunities, at a time when widespread loneliness threatens the mental and physical health of the nation.

Some of the infrastructure for overcoming these barriers already exists. Community kitchens run by social enterprises or religious groups offer free or ‘pay as you can’ meals. Examples include Gloucestershire’s The Long Table and Hare Krishna’s global Food for Life programme. Supermarket or IKEA cafes also use their scale to drive down costs and offer affordable meals.

The idea of providing a chargeable - but affordable - service also reflects a transition already happening in some communities to move away from food banks to food pantries and social supermarkets - both models offer a valuable service to different kinds of people. Rather than receiving food for free, customers pay a small amount, to improve sustainability and reduce stigma for service users (not unlike National Kitchens’ avoidance of the charity association). Nesta’s work with Community Shop explores how these initiatives can be designed to support healthier eating.

Can existing provision improve health, or is there a case for the state to step in?

With limited public funds and political will, fully deploying publicly-subsidised restaurants seems unlikely. We probably won’t see Mancunian Milk Bars or Cardiff Comodores in 2025.

However, the government has options for delivering the concept. There’s no shortage of specific proposals, such as making use of existing infrastructure such as school canteens to serve the wider community, entitlement cards that allow people to claim free or subsidised meals, and tiered pricing in restaurants. And supporting existing providers of low-cost food to improve the healthiness of their offer, sponsoring healthy options on the menus of large-scale partners (not unlike the Ideas for Change proposal), or refreshing public procurement rules to put health front-and-centre in schools and hospital cafeterias are all part of the policy spectrum.

Expect to see public diners inspire innovation among governments, charities and the food industry - not least because of rising interest in preventative healthcare, and the continued cost of living ‘pinch’. While large-scale communal dining might not be on the table just yet, the idea is certainly cooking.