Former government health tsar Henry Dimbleby’s Bramble Intelligence has published a list of 40 companies it believes will survive what it calls an “unprecedented” reshaping of diets and the food industry. The Bramble 40 names retailers, tech companies and manufacturers that the firm argues are best positioned to ride out a transformation that “has already arrived” but will continue to sweep aside existing sales models.
A companion piece of research, titled Tomorrow’s Appetites, warns that “the barbarians are at the gate” and that three outside forces — appetite-suppressing drugs, artificial intelligence and diet-related diagnostic technology — will bring new players from outside the traditional food sector.
“Not since the rise of the supermarkets in the 1970s have we seen anything like the change that is reshaping the food industry, and that was from within,” Dimbleby said. “This time it is forces from outside the food industry that are reshaping what people eat – those three big forces will lead to a redistribution of profits the food industry has not seen for over half a century.”
The numbers behind the warning
Bramble estimates that by 2035 the UK will eat 5% fewer calories. If food companies do not adapt, the drop in volume alone will mean a £3bn-£6bn loss in UK grocery sales in real terms, and a hit to operating profits in grocery of up to 35%.
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The research argues that to survive, food companies must now work out how to respond to the threat. The ones that will flourish, it says, are those that make it easy to eat well, provide food that nourishes, offer ingredients people can trust, and can thrive in what Bramble calls the “diet and health feedback loop.”
This external pressure on the food industry is unusual. The last major shift — the rise of supermarkets in the 1970s — came from within the sector itself, as retailers consolidated and changed how people shopped. Now the change is being driven by forces that have little to do with food: pharmaceuticals that suppress appetite, AI that can recommend meals, and diagnostics that give people real-time data on their health. That makes the current moment harder to predict and more challenging to manage, because food companies have less control over the direction of change.
The companies on the list
The Bramble 40 includes early-stage innovators and tech giants such as Google. UK companies featured include Yeo Valley, Pip & Nut and Bold Bean Co. International giants also appear, including Walmart for its Sparky AI shopping assistant, ChatGPT Health and TikTok.
Managing partner Chris Mitchell said: “The Bramble Intelligence 40 is a showcase of companies – from early-stage innovators to giants such as Google – moving to capture the biggest shift of profits in food since the rise of the supermarkets. We’ve chosen companies bringing fresh ideas to these new sources of growth – varied in size, scope and model, not all guaranteed to succeed, but each has rising revenue, growing users or a large installed base.”
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Dimbleby added: “This showcase is anchored in the UK and US, with examples from Asia and Europe. One section is UK-only by design, showing category-defining British food brands.”
He also laid out the strategic challenge for the industry: “As volume falls, food companies will have only three sources of growth: win market share in food, sell more nonfood products, or pull off the magic trick of redefining value by selling lower volumes of food for greater revenue.”
“The winners will not be the companies that talk most loudly about health,” Dimbleby said. “They will be the ones that can still make money when people buy fewer calories, and whose products and services are easy for consumers, AI tools to recognise as delicious, good value, filling, nutritious and genuinely better for health.”
