Introduction: Local governments play a large role in the health of their communities, and never more so than in the UK following the decentralisation of public health to local boroughs in 2012. Following this, the Healthier Catering Commitment (HCC) award was created as a response to high childhood obesity rates and the proliferation of fast food in London boroughs. HCC is a voluntary, local government-delivered initiative that engages food businesses (restaurants and takeaways) to improve the healthiness of their offerings (e.g. switching to healthier frying methods). Understanding the successful engagement strategies, challenges, and how to overcome them, will provide valuable insight into how local governments can influence their local food environments.
Methods: Key informant, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local government staff involved in HCC delivery, exploring their experiences and challenges of engaging food businesses. A thematic analysis approach was used.
Results: Participants drew on a variety of strategies to engage businesses, highlighting incentives, the ease of joining and the potential benefits both to their business and the health of their customers and community. The main barriers to joining were a fear of loss of business, as well as practical challenges to implementing and maintaining the award. HCC officers were also impeded by limited resourcing, balancing this by drawing heavily on shared resources and in-kind support from within and across councils. The ease of understanding and implementing the HCC, and it’s flexibility in delivery were seen as key strengths. Participants discussed the potential of HCC to have wide-spread impact by changing the expectations around healthy food provision.
Conclusion: This study shows engagement methods and potential challenges of the HCC, and provides lessons for other local governments in the UK and abroad considering similar actions to address the healthiness of food businesses in their community.