Commercial determinants of health: A new framework for studying relationships between food corporations and food charities in the UK

Relationships between food charities and commercial partners have been extensively critiqued by food charity scholars, particularly those that involve food corporations supporting charitable hunger relief whilst at the same time holding power over key drivers of food insecurity. This has important implications for health-related research on food charity that involves input from corporate donors. This paper argues that there is an opportunity to expand the field of health research on food insecurity and food charity by engaging with the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH) framework, to provide a new way of theoretically and analytically framing evidence and critiques on food charity with corporate involvement. The paper puts the CDoH framework into practice through an empirical study of food charity – food corporation relationships in the UK.