“Rather than restricting takeaway food we should seek to transform it, by making healthy food as visible, tasty, and cheap as unhealthy food.”
Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, British Medical Journal
The problem
Urban deprived areas are dominated by unhealthy takeaway food, increasing the risks of poor diets and health problems like obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The Solution
Healthy fast food outlets that are cheap, quick, close and tasty.
“Some local government money is being spent on healthy eating education programmes but those tend to be exercises in preaching to the converted… Compared to that the Box Chicken project starts to look like the only practical effort to do something.”
Jay Rayner, The Observer
So far…
- 6 healthier mobile catering units (one of which named Box Chicken) set up in 5 London boroughs
- 66% fewer calories, 53% less sugar, 40% less saturated fat, and 23% less salt, in each meal served (compared to a typical meal at a chicken shop)
- 2711 meals sold over the test period
- 200+ young people, teachers, youth workers, chicken shop workers and owners, nutritionists, and public health officials consulted in research
Research

Healthy Fast Food: Evaluating a new approach to improving the food environment
November 10, 2015
Evaluation Report

Box Chicken: Providing some healthy competition to fast food outlets
December 1, 2013
Evaluation Report

Chicken Shops: Fuelling London’s Youth
October 2, 2013
Infographic on the prevalence and effect of fast food outlets
Tori Flower and Kate Ferrier

Chicken Shops and Poor Diets
October 1, 2013
Summary of research findings including behavioural observation, survey of young people, local environment mapping, ethnography, chicken shop business profiling
Comment
Giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Select Committee
Our Food Director gives evidence on the role of takeaways in childhood obesity to the Health & Social Care Select Committee.
Shift’s healthier fast food adventure
The story so far… Shift has been working to increase healthier food habits over the last six years. Here we …
We’re nominated for an Urban Food Award
We’re excited to tell you that our project that puts healthy fast food outlets in areas dominated by unhealthy options, …
Street Food for social change: why gourmet hipsters are just part of the story
If you walk a few hundred metres west from Old Street roundabout, the new hub of London’s tech start up …
Box Chicken Launch
Hadrian Garrard from Create London and Nick Stanhope discuss the need for practical interventions to tackle poor diets at the launch of Box Chicken, a pilot of a healthy fast food outlet.
Our obsession with chicken shops
Earlier this year, I wrote about our early obesity research, through which we started looking at the way that the …
Overweight by default
We’ve spent a good chunk of the last year looking at how our approach to behaviour change can play a …
Coverage
Healthy food campaign targets chicken shops in Hackney
London Live, December 2014
‘Most chicken shops are just in it for the money’: healthy food vans tackle child obesity
Hackney Citizen, December 2014
Box Chicken pilot from Forest Gate welcomes plan to ban fast food
Newham Recorder, October 2014
Good for the Soul
East End Life, September 2014
Improving diets: health-by-stealth
Sustainable Food Trust, June, 2014
Fried Chicken Fix: Afterschool fast food
The Observer, October 2013
Box Chicken vs the chicken shop
The One Show, October 2013
Chicken vans offer pupils a lowfat takeaway lunch
The Evening Standard, September 2013
Forest Gate teenagers to trial tasty, healthy chicken
The Newham Recorder, September 2013
Forest Gate students test tasty, healthy chicken
The Newham Recorder, September, 2013
Box Chicken concept aims to take on east London fried chicken shops
Design Week, September 2013
Awards
Featured on New Radicals list, compiled by Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, and The Observer, naming the top people, projects and organisations offering innovative ways to tackle social challenges.
Videos
Watch our spot on The One Show: