The takeaways, cafes, restaurants and bakeries in our neighbourhoods and high streets are hugely important parts of our communities and our local economies. They are the places we go for a quick bite on the go and the places we meet friends and enjoy special occasions with family.  

In the UK, around two-thirds of adults live with excess weight or obesity which is a major contributor to ill-health and premature death. The places where we buy food that’s already prepared or cooked likely play a significant role in this obesity crisis. To reduce obesity levels and help more people live healthy lives for longer, we need to increase the accessibility, availability and affordability of healthy food in our takeaways and shops.

We analysed demographic and purchasing data from more than 5,000 people across Great Britain from the out-of-home subset of the Kantar Worldpanel fast-moving consumer goods panel to capture purchases from this sector between April and December 2021. We augmented nutritional data through the use of four sources of calorie information combined with data science methods.

To our knowledge, this is the first attempt of its kind to systematically and comprehensively link sales to nutritional data and this report provides the most accurate picture to date of purchasing patterns and how they contribute to Great Britain’s calorie intake. In doing so it uncovers numerous novel insights. 

1. The sector contributes on average 300 calories per person per day to our diets – 1,027 kcal per trip on average while the recommended amount of calories per meal is 600.
2. The number of calories purchased out of the home daily is distributed very unevenly across the population.
3. The majority of the population (~60%) uses the sector at least once a week; a small proportion of the population (11%) uses it, on average, at least once a day. 
4. Fast food and food to go from supermarkets make up over half the total number of calories purchased in this space.
5. Two-thirds of meals purchased exceed the recommended intake for a meal (600 calories); about 20% of meals are over half the recommended daily intake (for fast food meals specifically this figure is 30%).
6. Sandwiches are the single item which contribute the most calories purchased but other items such as pizza, burgers and fish are more likely to be driving our increasing obesity prevalence.
7. Non-alcoholic drinks (alcoholic drinks were not included in this analysis) contribute 12% of all calories purchased in the OOH sector. Coffee comprises 4% of the total calories purchased. 
8. On average, people living with excess weight purchase more calories from fast food.
9. Approximately 25% of the calories we purchased from fast food in 2021 were ordered digitally.
10. Large portion sizes mean that density-based healthiness metrics are not, in isolation, an appropriate measure of healthiness for OOH.

In demonstrating the scale of the contribution these food outlets make to our diets we strengthen the case for the importance of regulation. Our report highlights areas which likely contribute large quantities of excess calories to our diets but are currently subject to minimal or no regulation. 

This report makes the case that it should likely be possible to make small relative reductions in calorie content without reducing the joy we take from food. By targeting the sorts of food we are buying regularly, such small relative reductions would likely lead to large absolute reductions in calories purchased at a population level. 

Nesta is looking in more detail at this sector in the coming months and we will explore and, building on our retailer targets work, report on what approaches could be taken to use targets to most effectively increase the healthiness of food products prepared and purchased outside of the home.