H3: Healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people

Start date: 1 January 2021
End date: 31 December 2025

Photograph of a fruit and vegetable stand.

Description

The H3 programme is one of four research consortia funded by the £47.5M ‘Transforming UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme’ delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, PHE, Innovate UK and FSA.

It aims to fundamentally transform the UK food system by placing healthy people and a healthy natural environment at its centre, addressing questions around what we should eat, produce and manufacture and what we should import, taking into account the complex interactions between health, environment and socioeconomic factors.

By co-designing research and training across disciplines and stakeholders, and joining up healthy and accessible consumption with sustainable food production and supply, this Programme will deliver coherent evidence to enable concerted action from policy, business and civil society.

Visit the website.

Work Package (WP) 5 - Increased Fibre Consumption – and WP6 - Disrupted Supply Chains – are being led and delivered by researchers at the University of Leeds.

Members from Leeds University Business School are part of the WP6 team, seeking to increase food system resilience in supply chains to economic, health and environmental shocks, through collaborative research with retailers and consumers.

Dates: January 2023 to December 2025
Co-investigator and WP 6 Lead: William Young, Professor of Sustainability and Business (School of Earth and Environment).
WP6 Co-investigators: Gulbanu Kaptan, Associate Professor in Behavioural Decision Making (Leeds University Business School); Anne Tallontire, Professor of Sustainability and Business (School of Earth and Environment); Romain Crastes dit Sourd, Associate Professor (Leeds University Business School) and Steffen Hirth, Research Fellow (School of Earth and Environment).

Publications and outputs

Journal articles:

Hirth, S., Morgan, E., Kaptan, G., Tallontire, A., Young, W., & Winter, M. (2025) “Restoring Food System Resilience in a Turbulent World: Supply Chain Actors' Shared Responsibility”. Business Strategy and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4287
Hirth, S., Morgan, E., dit Sourd, R., Kaptan, G., Tallontire, A., Young, W. (2025). “Leverage points to improve resilience in supply chains: civil food resilience and food sovereignty”. Journal of Rural Studies. 119, 103720, ISSN 0743-016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103720

Policy brief

“H3 policy and practice brief two: Improving resilience of food supply chains in the UK”, Dr Romain Crastes dit Sourd, Dr Steffen Hirth, Dr Elizabeth Morgan, Dr Gulbanu Kaptan, Professor Anne Tallontire and Professor William Young, March 2025.

Blog posts

“Examining food system resilience in the UK — disrupted fruit and veg supply,” Dr Steffen Hirth, Dr Romain Crastes dit Sourd, Dr Gulbanu Kaptan, Professor Anne Tallontire and Professor William Young. Global Food & Environment Institute (Medium), March 2023

Conference presentations

Kaptan, G., (May 2025). Project outcomes – delivered as part of the Crisis and Disaster Risk Management Research Group seminar series. University of Leicester School of Business. (UK)
Hirth, S., Morgan E, Kaptan, G., Crastes dit Sourd, R, Tallontire, A., Young, W. (April 2025). Civil food resilience in a turbulent world: perspectives of British supply chain actors. SCORAi Europe Conference. Lund (Sweden)
Hirth, S., Crastes dit Sourd, R, Kaptan, G., Tallontire, A., Young, W. (Sept 2023). Responsible retailer-consumer relations in the UK: Pathways to align healthy diets and sustainability standards with resilient food supply chains. CRRC-2023: Corporate Social Responsibility Research Conference. Cambridge (UK)