| סיכום: | <p><b>Introduction:</b> A poor diet is one of the leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality around the world. National and international policymakers recognise that changing the food supply is a crucial part in changing the diets of a population, yet there are few established methods to monitor the actions of food manufacturers and retailers. </p>
<p><b>Aim:</b> The overarching aim of this thesis was to develop and apply a new method pairing food sales data and nutrition composition data to allow the nature of the food supply to be quantified and monitored over time.
Method: A systematic review identified potential sources of food sales data. A cross comparison data study, led to the selection of Euromonitor as the most appropriate source for food sales data with nutrition composition data collected from supermarket websites by commercial company Brand View. The sales data and nutrition information were paired based on product name, brand name and category. This unique method was then applied in two ways: first, by analysing the changes in the sugar content of selected food and drinks in the UK between 2015 and 2018 in the context of the UK Government’s 20% sugar reduction targets and soft drinks industry levy (SDIL); and second by applying a nutrient profiling model to the top 10 UK companies’ product portfolios, to develop a benchmarking tool based on the healthiness of companies’ products. </p>
<p><b>Results:</b> Analysis showed that the sales-weighted mean sugar content of soft drinks fell by 34% between 2015 and 2018, from 4.4g/100ml to 2.9g/100ml. The total volume of sugars 2 sold from soft drinks decreased by 30%, from 15.5g per capita per day to 10.8g, a reduction of 4.7g. There was a much smaller decrease in the mean sugar content or sugar sales from food products included in the sugar reduction strategy. The total volume sales of sugar from the included categories fell by 8%, equating to 1.7g per capita per day with marked differences across food categories. However, there has been no significant change between 2015 and 2018 in the overall nutrient profiling score for the top 10 food and drink companies in the UK. In 2018, the sales-weighted mean score of all food and drinks was 65, below the score of 70 which can be considered ‘healthy’. No individual company had an overall score of above 70. There was little change in the number of individual products classified as healthy, although the proportion of total sales classified as healthy increased from 38% to 46%.</p>
<p><b>Discussion:</b> This thesis provides novel insights into how companies have responded to Government public health policies, including the sugar reduction programme. A new method has been developed in this thesis that has the potential to be used continually to monitor the nutritional composition of the food supply, to evaluate which companies are making efforts to improve public health nutrition and to monitor the pace of change.</p>
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