UK state engineering marketing is dead pietro paganini

State Engineering: Marketing is Dead in the UK – Paganini non Ripete 306

The UK is moving beyond education and prevention, towards engineering what people see, find and buy. From HFSS advertising bans to “healthiness targets”, food policy is becoming a tool to shape markets and even taste, flavour, and texture, rendering marketing increasingly irrelevant. This is not just about health. It’s about freedom, competition, entrepreneurship, and who decides.

Read the full analysis here in PDF. 

State Engineering: Marketing is Dead in the UK 

The UK is no longer trying to persuade citizens to eat better.
It is increasingly deciding what they should see, find, and progressively buy.

HOW IT STARTED   As of 5 January 2026, the UK has introduced a ban on advertising HFSS products (High Fat, Sugar and Salt) before 9pm on TV and at any time online. It is among the most restrictive food-policy regimes globally.

  • The stated objective – reducing children’s exposure to advertising and tackling childhood obesity – is legitimate. The method chosen, however, reveals a deeper shift.

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WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING   The UK is building a regulatory system that goes well beyond information and education. 

  • It first targeted communication; 
  • it is now moving toward shaping the offer itself. 
At the core lies the Nutrient Profiling Model: an administrative tool that simplifies nutrition in order to make it governable. Foods are assessed as isolated entities by adding up “good” and “bad” nutrients, while ignoring context, portion sizes, consumption frequency, lifestyles, and individual responsibility. 
  • It is the same reductionist logic that inspired Nutri-Score.

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WHY THIS IS A PROBLEM   These policies treat obesity and health as an arithmetic exercise. The outcome is predictable: very different products end up in the same category; many traditional foods -including pillars of the Mediterranean diet – are penalised not for misuse, but for composition. Communication is constrained and reformulation becomes an implicit obligation. Not always feasible. Not always neutral. Often culturally disruptive.

THE REAL PARADIGM SHIFT: HEALTHINESS TARGETS   The most consequential step lies ahead. Proposals are being discussed to introduce “healthiness targets” for large retailers, targets for the average “healthiness” of the food offer, calculated on sales volumes and aggregated nutritional scores. 
  • Formally, this is not a ban on selling specific products. In practice, it is something more sophisticated: a systemic pressure that determines what deserves space on the market.
A STATE-CONTROLLED MARKET(ING)   Shifting regulation from communication to the architecture of the offer incentivises an administrative selection of products. 
  • Those who can engineer recipes to fit public parameters survive. 
  • Traditional products, cultural food chains, and SMEs are penalised. 
  • What prevails is no longer what consumers choose, but what fits criteria defined by the state. 
This is the logic of a “guided taste” increasingly close to a state-defined taste.
This is not merely a food-policy debate. It directly affects creativity, entrepreneurship, and competition. 
WHERE IS LIBERALISM?   The paradox is striking: the birthplace of classical liberalism is now embracing forms of state steering that progressively narrow choice: 
  • not by banning it outright, but by engineering the environment in which choices are made.

It is true that the UK also promotes education programmes and physical activity. Yet these initiatives are increasingly subordinated to a state-defined dietary framework, rather than empowering individuals in the personal search for balance, responsibility, and long-term wellbeing.

RESULTS AND THE RISK OF ESCALATION   Despite years of expanding regulatory reach and increasingly restrictive interventions, outcomes remain modest. 
And here lies the most worrying dynamic: instead of prompting a rethink, limited results are used to justify even tighter controls. 
  • When policies underperform, the response is not reflection but escalation.
A DIFFERENT METHOD EXISTS    Italy, drawing on the Mediterranean lifestyle tradition, has recently adopted its first comprehensive obesity law, choosing a different method: 
  • education, prevention, and individual responsibility. Imperfect, certainly,but more consistent with the complexity of obesity and the principle that health cannot be built by decree.
WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND THE UK   This is not a national issue. It is a political and cultural test watched closely beyond UK borders. Once we accept that the state can “optimise” the food offer in the name of health, it becomes difficult to explain why it should not do the same for other behaviours.
  • Europe is approaching a real choice.   Are we genuinely addressing obesity, or are we replacing complexity with regulatory shortcuts that risk producing more side effects than lasting benefits?

State Engineering: Marketing is Dead in the UK – Paganini non Ripete 306

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