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Nesta is a research and innovation foundation. We apply our deep expertise in applied methods to design, test and scale solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, working across the innovation lifecycle.

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In A healthy life

Nesta and Greggs: working together to support healthier choices

This project started in July 2025 and is ongoing

We’re partnering with Greggs to explore ways to support healthier choices for their customers by working together to test and scale the best ways to improve the healthiness of food sales over time.

As part of our commitment to find innovative solutions to drive healthier eating habits for consumers, without compromising on taste or convenience, we are working with Greggs, one of the UK’s leading food-on-the-go retailers.

Through this partnership, we will work together to develop a methodology for measuring the healthiness of Greggs food sales. Using an effective metric to understand the health impact of a company’s sales is an important first step in order to understand the baseline impact on which to drive meaningful improvement.

Over time, we will then work together to set a target for improvement and co-design, trial and evaluate interventions that make it easier for customers to choose healthier options.

Why are we doing this?

By partnering with Greggs, we aim not only to support their customers to make healthier choices, but also to generate robust, real-world evidence on what works to improve the healthiness of food sales at scale. This will provide practical insight to support the implementation of the healthy food standard, part of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England.

Team

Ryu Matsuura

Ryu Matsuura

Ryu Matsuura

Researcher, healthy life mission

He/Him

Ryu is a researcher for Nesta's healthy life mission.

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Lourdes Valencia Torres

Lourdes Valencia Torres

Lourdes Valencia Torres

Behavioural Scientist

She/Her

Lourdes is a behavioural scientist for Nesta's healthy life mission.

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David Dearlove

David Dearlove

David Dearlove

Principal Researcher, healthy life mission

David joins Nesta as a principal researcher in the healthy life team.

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Patricia Beloe

Patricia Beloe

Patricia Beloe

Senior Analyst, healthy life mission

Patricia Beloe is a senior analyst in the healthy life team.

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Ellen Davies

Ellen Davies

Ellen Davies

Designer, Design & Technology

Ellen works as a designer in our healthy life mission, bringing designer-led and people-centred methods into our research and innovation work.

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Elena Mariani

Elena Mariani

Elena Mariani

Principal Data Scientist, healthy life mission

Elena is a principal data scientist for the healthy life mission.

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In partnership with

Greggs

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