Devex: Why we must make healthy food the profitable choice

Several uncomfortable food facts have emerged in the last few years.

First, an unhealthy food basket is more affordable than a healthy one, in all income settings. Second, food manufacturers with narrower, unhealthy food product portfolios have a higher average margin compared to their peers with healthier food product portfolios. Third, 66% of the revenue of food manufacturers in high-income and in low- and middle-income countries is derived from unhealthy food sales. Lastly — and an unfortunate result of these shifts — in 2025, for the first time, more children aged 5-19 years were affected by overweight and obesity than underweight.

The global food “market,” which was designed to prevent mass starvation by ensuring access to enough energy after World War II, is now failing to deliver affordable, nutritious foods.

Unhealthy and ultra-processed foods are displacing healthier foods in people’s diets. In turn, diet-related noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, were responsible for 11 million premature deaths globally in 2017, and that figure is growing. Low- and middle-income countries are most impacted: individuals lose income, households have to spend a large share of their incomes on NCD treatments, and as a result are more likely to live in poverty. As countries’ healthcare costs mount, productivity declines.

So how do we rewire the food system to establish economic drivers that make healthier food production the smarter choice? We need a market fit for healthier foods.

1. Change how public and private finance is used

First, use public and private finance differently. Over the last century, the private sector has revolutionized what and how we eat, supporting improved food security and food safety. However, current government agricultural subsidies often focus on sugar as well as staples — rice, wheat, maize — typically transformed into highly processed, nutrient-poor foods, increasing the gap between healthier and less healthy products.

Private investors, meanwhile, focus on short-term profits, often driving capital toward profitable, but less healthy foods. Even development finance institutes, which could be leaders in driving capital toward companies promoting access to healthier options, often focus intently on the bottom line.

To turn this around, governments should incentivize healthy food value chains and penalize unhealthy ones. Institutional investors and impact investors wield enormous power and could leverage their capital through debt and equity deals in healthier food companies. It makes good investment sense — regulation is growing, and while companies producing unhealthy food products may look financially sound today, they will be at risk tomorrow.

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