The Challenge
The boom in online ordering and delivery is making it even easier and more convenient for families to consume unhealthy takeaway food. The UK takeaway market alone has grown by 34% in the last 5 years and ‘everyday takeaway’ has become the new normal with many families ordering 3+ times a week. However, the nutritional profiles of takeaways continue to reflect their traditional use – as an occasional treat. The average takeaway meal contains 68% of the recommended daily calorie intake, so this new trend of ‘everyday’ consumption can lead to negative health effects.
Our reponse
We have created a series of affordable, takeaway brands serving up proper meals that are delicious, loved by kids and better for you. Box Chicken is a takeaway & delivery service offering cluckin’ good chicken. Mama Leys serves up cold pre-cooked home made meals your Mama might make.
Shift have got under the skin of the challenge in terms of understanding the nutrition of takeaways meals, the role this food plays in people’s lives, the nature of the businesses involved and how their owners relate to them. They are crystal clear on what we can (and can’t) hope to influence and what we have to work with in order to effect change.
Adrian Phillips, Director of Public Health, Birmingham City Council
So far…
- 8+ years making fast food healthier
- Ethnographic research with 44 families to understand the role takeaway plays in their lives
- Co-design and development with parents, food industry experts and brand creatives
- Online tests reaching 129,066 parents to validate the proposition
- 11 week full service ‘Family Feeds’ prototype in Erdington to test market demand
- Rebooted, rebranded pilot launched in South London in late 2019.
Team
Research
Hot, prepared revolution: A summary of two years work looking at takeaways
December 17, 2018
Shift has developed the UK’s most detailed understanding of takeaway food, families’ relationship with it, the role hot, prepared food plays in their food behaviours, the economics of outlets and the motivations of their owners. Possible avenues for positive change have been tested and the way forward is clear.
VIDEO Families and Food: How the environment influences what families eat
June 18, 2018
Insights video summarising our research into how the environment influences families’ food behaviours in Lambeth and Southwark. Videography by Jan Stockel, produced by Maia Muir Wood, and Chloe Cook. Commissioned by Guys and St Thomas’ Charity.
Families and Food: How the environment influences what families eat
May 31, 2018
Research report produced by Shift for Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity. By Chloe Cook, Maia Muirwood and Chris Holmes
Childhood Obesity Opportunity Spaces: THEME 5: INCLUSIVE REGENERATION
June 1, 2018
Where are there opportunities to impact the local food environment?
Childhood Obesity Opportunity Spaces: THEME 4: SOCIAL INFLUENCES
Where are there opportunities to impact the local food environment?
Childhood Obesity Opportunity Spaces: THEME 3: CREATURES OF HABIT
Where are there opportunities to impact the local food environment?
Childhood Obesity Opportunity Spaces: THEME 2: HEALTHY HEADSPACE
Where are there opportunities to impact the local food environment?
Childhood Obesity Opportunity Spaces: THEME 1: ENVIRONMENTAL NUDGES
Where are there opportunities to impact the local food environment?
VIDEO: Bite Size: Breaking down the challenge of inner-city childhood obesity
Video exploring what behavioural science, lived experience and insights from leading practitioners tell us about one of the biggest health challenges of our time, childhood obesity. Produced by Guys and St Thomas’s Charity, with content and production contributions from Chloe Cook and Maia Muir Wood.
Bite Size: Breaking down the challenge of inner-city childhood obesity
Report exploring what behavioural science, lived experience and insights from leading practitioners tell us about one of the biggest health challenges of our time, childhood obesity. Produced by Guys and St Thomas’s Charity, with content and production from Chloe Cook and Maia Muir Wood.
Stealthy Fast Food: Phase 2 Evaluation Report
December 6, 2017
Evaluation report of experimental feasibility study aiming to test a variety of realistic adaptations to fast food business and evaluate these adaptations to understand their relative effectiveness in relation to sales, costs, customer satisfaction and health. Funded by Public Health, Tower Hamlets. By Chloe Cook and Chris Holmes
Healthier Fast Food: Mapping the Fast Food Environment in Hackney
May 10, 2017
Evaluation report of a pilot research project undertaken from June 2016 to April 2017 mapping the changing fast food environment of two streets in Hackney, London: Morning Lane and Well Street.
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
Final year design students set brief for brand strategy for our food venture
BA (Hons) Graphic Branding and Identity students at London College of Communications pitched ideas for our Better Everyday Takeaway venture.
VIDEO: Shift’s Development Director on families and food behaviours at #ShopWellEatWell
Chris Holmes, MD of Shift’s Healthy Food Programme, speaking on BBC News
Chris discusses the rise of fast food takeaway shops their effect on obesity.
Building a social enterprise to tackle childhood obesity Part 2: Validating the concept
Kids are becoming obese at earlier ages and staying obese for longer. We’re taking a design thinking approach to building …
Building a social enterprise to tackle childhood obesity: part 1 – The process to get to a valid concept
Kids are getting fatter. Generations are becoming obese at earlier ages and staying obese for longer. This is a …
Families and Food: how can we help families swim against the current?
Blog from our Food Director Chris Holmes & Sarah Hickey from Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Charity exploring how food environments can help or hinder people to live well.
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 …
Stealthy Healthy Changes: Designing tweaks to fast food outlets to improve health and maintain profits
It’s a bit of a special week this week for the food team as our first intervention tests have gone …
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
The takeaway that wants to be healthy by stealth
Observer Food Monthly, March 2020
Innovative takeaway opens in Erdington
Birmingham Press, July 2018
There’s a new takeaway selling cottage pie and mac ‘n’ cheese in Erdington
Birmingham Mail, July 2018
Partners
. 
