We thank the author(s) for their thoughtful and constructive engagement with our article. We appreciate the spirit in which the letter was written and welcome the opportunity it provides to reflect further on both the contribution and the limitations of existing approaches to monitoring trade and investment agreements and food systems.

We agree that food environments and how they are experienced by consumers are shaped by numerous trade and investment factors – within and beyond food systems – that may merit monitoring. Issues raised, such as the extent of import dependency, supply chain vulnerabilities, fuel prices and siloed governance structures, are highly relevant to understanding how trade and investment shape food environments and nutrition outcomes. While our article focused on applying an established monitoring tool in the Canadian context, the authors’ comments usefully point to a broader set of exposures and vulnerabilities with implications for equitable access to healthy diets.

We see these suggestions as important potential extensions of the monitoring agenda – many of which are currently under discussion among the INFORMAS trade and investment monitoring leadership team. For example, indicators relating to import dependency or the share of household income required for food could help capture pathways through which international economic conditions shape affordability and dietary change, including shifts towards cheaper, energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods; while extensions to monitoring biofuels or animal feed would capture wider connections.

At the same time, we also recognise the need to find a careful balance between analytical comprehensiveness and the practical requirements of a global monitoring initiative. Monitoring frameworks are ideally feasible, comparable across countries, repeatable over time and sufficiently focused to generate policy-relevant findings. Some of the issues raised by the authors may be well suited to inclusion as additional indicators within the trade and investment module. Others may be better addressed through complementary political economy analysis, country case studies or integration with other INFORMAS modules. For example, the authors’ points about governance are well taken; within INFORMAS, related questions are also examined through other domains that assess the extent of government policy implementation and infrastructure support for healthy food environments (1). Similarly, forthcoming INFORMAS methods will propose monitoring for ‘current’ and ‘healthier’ diet costs as a proportion of household income, demonstrating how price volatility affects food access broadly.

The letter also highlights a broader and important point about whose perspectives shape the design of monitoring frameworks. Expanding participation in the development and refinement of such tools is essential for ensuring that they capture the policy dynamics that matter across diverse country contexts. Ongoing efforts to update the INFORMAS monitoring protocols have placed substantial emphasis on broader engagement and low- and middle-income country relevance. The issues identified by the authors provide a valuable example of how wider participation can surface dimensions of food system risk and policy relevance that may otherwise receive insufficient attention.

Overall, we welcome the authors’ suggestions as constructive and timely. They point to important opportunities to strengthen future monitoring of trade and investment and food systems, particularly in ways that better capture vulnerability, affordability and dietary consequences across different national contexts. We agree that more complex analyses of these relationships are needed and see considerable value in linking monitoring tools with broader political economy analysis to support more meaningful policy interpretation and recommendations.