A Taste for Change? Food Companies Assessed for Action to Enable Healthier Choices
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Which? works for you Consumer Report December 2012 A taste for change? Food companies assessed for action to enable healthier choices Key contacts For more information, please contact the Which? External Affairs team on 020 7770 7000 or email [email protected] Contents Executive summary 3 Executive summary Around a quarter of people in the 8 Our research UK are now obese and diet-related diseases, such as cancers, heart 10 Overall commitment to action disease and stroke are the major 14 Reducing salt killers. It is estimated that excess 18 Cutting fat, calories and weight is costing the NHS more sugar than £5 billion every year1 22 Clearer nutrition labelling Which? research2 shows that most people are interested in Company responses to the crisis have been varied. While some Price promotions eating healthily, know what makes up a healthy diet, but have have a long-standing commitment to diet and health issues; 24 difficulty putting it into practice. A range of factors from others have taken longer to recognise that they have to be inconsistent labelling to the cost of healthier choices generally more responsible. 26 Responsible advertising make it easier to opt for less healthy food options instead. Successive government initiatives have tried to push A Which? assessment in March 2012 concluded that the and claims companies to take more action with varying degrees of Responsibility Deal was too limited and issued a call for urgent success. The most recent initiative, the Public Health action by the Government and food industry on a wider range Responsibility Deal, encourages companies to sign up to of issues. This report assesses how far the leading companies 28 Marketing to children voluntary pledges to take action to improve health. When it was have moved to deliver positive changes for consumers and launched in 2011, the Government stated that it would deliver sets out a series of recommendations to government and faster and better results than could be achived through a industry to ensure that the action taken is more 30 Sweets at checkouts regulatory route. But a Which? survey in February 2012 found comprehensive. that only 39 per cent of people thought that supermarkets were taking enough action to help – and just 20 per cent 31 Conclusions and thought this was the case with food manufacturers. action needed 34 The manufacturers compared 44 The retailers compared 02 Which? A taste for change? Which? A taste for change? 03 Executive summary Our assessment: The response from the food industry is key to tacking the two issues, but less in others. And very few have made public health challenges facing the UK. In our research we good progress on all the areas we looked at. looked at 20 leading food manufacturers and retailers to assess the steps they have taken to deliver positive Overall, The Co-operative leads the way among the changes that will benefit consumers and make healthy retailers, demonstrating a high level of commitment to choices easier in the following areas: change having introduced the best front of pack labelling scheme several years ago and by recognising the power Overall commitment within the company to take action. of price promotions to encourage healthier choices. In Improvements made to salt levels in foods. contrast, Iceland has taken a much more limited approach, Action to lower saturated fat, sugar and calorie content. failing to commit to salt targets and work on calorie Removal of trans fatty acids. reduction. It is also the only retailer to provide no nutrition Clear, prominent nutrition labelling. information on front of pack – although it has recently A balance of healthier choices in price promotions. committed to include traffic light labelling during 2013. Responsible advertising and claims. Responsible marketing practices to children. Manufacturers have generally been less pro-active than retailers with none of the companies we looked at yet We analysed each company’s performance in these committed to providing traffic light labelling on front of areas, some of which are currently outside the pack. No company consistently comes out as best or Responsibility Deal. We found that although some worst across all of the areas, but PepsiCo stands out for examples of good practice exist, on the whole consumers scoring highly on corporate commitment and one of the are being let down by an inconsistent approach. companies taking more action on salt and saturated fat Some companies have made good progress on one or and sugar reductions. 04 Which? A taste for change Which? A taste for changet 0502 Executive summary Main findings and recommendations Overall committment to change Clear nutrition labelling Sweets at checkouts There is great variation across the industry - while some Most companies are now providing some form of Only The Co-operative, Sainsbury’s and Tesco companies have built a series of specific health targets nutrition information on the front of food and drink have policies in place to prohibit sweets and other into their business plans, others have made vague packaging, but the approach is inconsistent, making it unhealthy foods from being on display at checkouts. statements and some emphasise the importance of harder for consumers to make healthy choices. All The Government should ensure that retailers adopt physical activity, rather than focusing on changes to retailers are now committed to using the traffic light policies and implement them. The Responsibility products and the way they are promoted. labelling scheme to indicate whether fat, sugar and salt Deal: no incentive or levels are high, medium or low and some have been Reducing salt providing this for some time. However, none of the disincentive Small changes in products have removed tonnes of salt manufacturers we looked at was committed. The from the nation’s diet and a Department of Health 2011 Government needs to ensure all companies use the Our research shows that the survey showed this has translated into clear clinical traffic light scheme and that it is based on robust criteria. A change of pace Government’s Public Health evidence of a fall in how much salt people are eating3. Overall, consumers need to see consistent approaches to Responsibility Deal is currently But some companies are making much more progress Price promotions key issues across the food industry. Which? research1 has failing to deliver on its promise that than others. More action is needed to ensure that 2012 The Co-operative and Sainsbury’s stand out for having found that people expect the Government to be taking by challenging businesses to lead salt reduction targets are met and further government set specific targets for the balance of healthier foods to more action in areas such as encouraging companies the way it would achieve faster and targets need to be set for on-going reductions across a be included in their price promotions. But even these to lower the fat, sugar and salt level of foods; ensuring better results than through other broad range of foods. retailers still only aim for one third of the products on responsible marketing; and promoting consistent labelling. approaches, such as using promotion to be healthy. Other retailers have regular legislation. Removing harmful trans fats promotions on fruit and vegetables but lack policies Our assessment looked at the largest retailers and A lot of progress has been made eliminating trans fats across other products. All retailers need to establish manufacturers, but it is very important that action is taken A limited number of voluntary from the products of all 20 companies we looked at. The meaningful targets for healthier products in price across the industry, including the many smaller companies pledges have been adopted, but Government should ensure that they are removed from promotions. The Government should therefore make and the catering sector. Overall, the pace of change needs some of these cover areas where all products, including those from smaller manufacturers this a priority for the Responsibility Deal. to be increased dramatically. A much greater sense of action was already well underway, and caterers by introducing a ban. urgency is needed. The Government has to take more such as salt reduction and trans fat Responsible advertising responsibility for helping people to eat healthily. removal. Pledges to encourage Cutting calories, fat and sugar action in new areas, such as calorie Some progress has been made in reducing fat, saturated and claims Clear targets and milestones need to be set out by the reduction and increasing fruit and fat, sugars and calories - although this has been patchy. Despite new rules coming into place on health and nutrition Government and there need to be more effective sanctions vegetable consumption, are vague Many companies we looked at had signed the claims made on foods, claims can still be confusing and the for companies that are not doing enough. Companies with no clear indication of the scale Responsibility Deal calorie reduction pledge, but not all, criteria that underpin healthy eating logos are not always should be named and shamed and legislation should be of action required. Many important and some of the commitments are vague. More action is transparent. Companies need to ensure claims are only considered where insufficient action is taken voluntarily. areas, such as the need for action on needed by companies to reduce saturated fat, sugar and made on genuinely healthy choices. The Government saturated fat reductions, traffic light the calorie content of foods where this is feasible without should ensure nutritional criteria are set for levels of fat, sugar Greater Parliamentary scrutiny is needed given the scale of labelling, responsible price compromising on quality. The Government needs to set and salt in products that make claims.