Milo mostly a sweetish treat
Nestle´ has always understood the value of a good story. And no story is as powerful as linking your product with healthy, happy kids.
That’s been the big push for Milo for generations - think of Milo and images of crunchy brown powder, milk, chocolate moustaches and kids playing sport rise to the surface of your mind.
This just as effortlessly translates to sales, because in the mad rush to do the right thing by their kids, parents have seized on Milo as a drink that will be loved and is also good for them.
Now Nestle´ is voluntarily withdrawing the 4.5 health star rating on Milo. The company has been under pressure because Milo, which is nearly 50 per cent sugar, only gets the rating if you drink a prescribed amount with a prescribed amount of trim milk.
So it slipped through a handy loophole of being what it is when it is made up. If you make it up like that. Which no-one does. We all put way more Milo in and use normal milk.
But dropping the rating won’t mean much.
Milo’s joined at the hip with the idea of healthy children growing up and it doesn’t need a health star rating to sustain it.
Top sports stars like netball’s Maria Folau, who currently stars on the website, can still push the sports-health-drink-nourishment link in a way that doesn’t break any rules or mislead.
And Milo has done all this before anyway – courted ratings, dined out on the publicity, then slipped quietly away.
In 2009, Milo dumped its Health Foundation ‘‘tick’’ just eight months after winning it in a blaze of ‘‘Milo is healthy’’ publicity.
When the tick was announced, it came under immediate attack for being given to a product that was about half sugar.
Milo argued that it was healthy when served as three level teaspoons in a 200ml glass of trim milk, but quickly gave up and didn’t renew the licence.
Then in 2015 Nestle´ changed the
Milo's joined at the hip with the idea of healthy children growing up and it doesn't need a health star rating to sustain it.
Kiwi Milo formula to win the 4.5 health star rating it is now abandoning.
It dramatically re-jigged things by adding vitamin D, B3, B6, B12 and taking out vitamins A, B1 and magnesium and vanilla.
This got it over the line and Nestle´ sold the change by saying the formula was healthier ‘‘to help active kids perform at their best!’’.
Milo was invented in 1934 by Australian industrial chemist Thomas Mayne, who launched it at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
In its first few decades it was marketed as a fortified tonic drink that could ‘‘soothe senses, induce sleep and nourish the sick’’.
It was only in later years the emphasis changed to nourishing the sporty, and then, in particular, the young and sporty.
A question and answer section in the Healthy Food Guide was asked how good Milo was for children and the answer puts it into perspective.
The guide recommended that Milo made with milk could be an occasional drink for children, but should be limited to less than once a week (with other sweetened drinks restricted) and it should be part of a varied and balanced diet.
Milo can be healthy in the right amount and unhealthy in the wrong amount. Like just about everything else.
One of the great changes is how much more closely we are looking at our food labels.
We are making up our own minds about what we should eat and drink, and how much, and that’s the healthiest path of all.
Milo is a fair enough part of Kiwi life, a treat here and there that won’t hurt, or by itself make your kids sporting stars.