Companies’ big fat failure
Half of Australia’s food and drink businesses flunk nutrition test
AUSTRALIA’S major food and beverage manufacturers could be doing “far more” to address the country’s obesity crisis.
A new Deakin University report that ranks the nutrition policies of the nation’s biggest food and beverage manufacturers found only half received a passing grade.
The Inside our Food and Beverage Manufacturers report did not examine the healthiness of specific products, but rather companies’ policies and commitments related to obesity prevention and nutrition, rating them on a scale of 1 to 100.
Of the 19 manufacturers investigated, three was the low- est score recorded and 71 the highest.
Nestle and Coca-Cola were among the best performers, while Kelloggs, McCain and Schweppes were among those scoring below 50.
It marks the first time Australia’s food manufacturers have been put under the microscope in this way.
Report lead author Associate Professor Gary Sacks, a Research Fellow at Deakin’s Global Obesity Centre, said the food and beverage manufacturers varied substantially in their policies and commit- ments, and there was considerable room for improvement for all companies.
“Unhealthy diets are creating a public health crisis in Australia,” Associate Prof Sacks said. “This has a high cost to the economy, including large impacts on the health care system and productivity.”
He said most companies assessed in the report had acknowledged their responsibility for being part of efforts to improve population diets, and had some related policies and commitments in place.
“The areas of strongest per- formance included companies reporting some action to reformulate products to make them healthier, and an increasing commitment among companies to implement the Australian Government-endorsed Health Star Rating food labelling system,” he said.
“A key point, backed up by other research, is that the current voluntary commitments to reduce marketing to kids are ineffectual, so companies need to tighten up their policies and actions in the area.
“While they promise not to directly target children, this doesn’t prevent unhealthy food advertising in prime-time when the highest number of children are watching.”
The report sets out three priorities for companies to make a positive contribution to obesity prevention and population nutrition: PROMOTION to children, to reduce the expose of kids to the promotion of less healthy foods; PRODUCT formulation, including setting specific targets to reduce added sugar, salt and fat; and NUTRITION labelling.