Financing food environments: who has the power to drive healthier food investment in Australia?

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of financialization and the commercial determinants of health (CDoH), with a focus on Australian food systems. While existing research highlights the food industry's role in shaping dietary patterns and health outcomes, the financial sector's influence on food systems governance remains underexamined. By investigating key actors in food systems investment policy and practice and the types of power they wield, this study contributes to a growing body of literature on CDoH. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with financial (e.g. investment banks and assets managers) and non-financial (e.g. food industry, government, and civil society) actors in Australia. Applying Moon's expanded power typology, we examined how financial and non-financial actors influence food systems investment, the disruptive potential of the financial sector on established power dynamics, and implications for the healthfulness of food environments. Our results identified economic power as the foundation of influence, but network and expert power were seen as critical, especially for financial actors to get deals done. Financial actors, including the 'responsible investment' sector, were perceived as potentially disrupting traditional power dynamics dominated by transnational food companies. Financial norms and practices manifested differently among different actors and areas of food systems. Governments were viewed as largely absent, with calls for them to articulate a clear investment policy vision to guide healthier food systems. This study provides novel insights into financial sector involvement in food systems, the disruption of traditional power dynamics, and opportunities for healthier food systems while also raising risks for increased market concentration through financialization.