Sonia Pombo, Campaign Manager

Another year, another report on the state of the Nation’s food system – and it makes for grim reading. With so much consensus and apparent drive from ‘the powers that be’ to improve our food environment, you would think that we would finally reach a turning point where we could praise and celebrate industry’s reformulation successes. Foods high in fat, salt and sugar, particularly those intended for child consumption, should now be the exception, not the rule. But here we are, trapped in Groundhog Day. 

As collaborators on the Food Foundations’ ‘Broken Plate’ report for the 4th consecutive year, we have been monitoring the nutritional profile of breakfast cereals with packaging appealing to children – think cartoons, child-friendly fonts, and tigers. Foods designed to kick start the day should be packed with nutritional goodness, but some really aren’t all that ‘grrrrreat!’ 

Sure, they’ve made some improvements this millennia. Salt content on average has gone down by 50% since the start of the salt reduction programme in 2003, and cereals have been one of very few food categories to make notable reductions in sugar. But with only 7% of breakfast cereals marketed to children being ‘low’ in sugar, is there really much to celebrate?  

When you delve into the data, it’s clear that retailers are doing much of the leg work. Their cereals are now on average lower in salt and sugar, and higher in fibre, compared to bigger brands. But why is that? Do the big brands not have the knowledge or investment to reformulate? Hardly; they are some of the biggest food companies out there, selling millions of cereal boxes globally for a hefty profit. Kellogg’s alone represent nearly a third of the global retail value – they have the money and the know-how and have previously reformulated their products to contain less salt and sugar. But the majority (55%) of their products are still unhealthy, and instead of working to reformulate and improve the nutritional quality of their food, they have focussed their efforts on trying to overrule the government’s restrictions on promotion and advertising of HFSS food – more fool them. 

So, what is stopping them from reformulating and making healthier food? We know it can be done, and has been done successfully, and we know it would benefit public health.  The primary issue is that food companies have come up with all manner of excuses not to do it, and yet rather than the government imposing regulation, they continue to insist that they can work together with the food industry.  

We need big businesses to up their moral (and literal) fibre, accept their role in public health and stop misleading consumers into thinking their products are healthier than they really are – stop the misleading claims on unhealthy food, stop enticing children with sickeningly sweet cereals, which should be classed as confectionary more than anything else, and stop pulling the wool over our eyes with laughable portion sizes – 30g doesn’t even hit the sides. 

We shouldn’t need government to legislate and force companies to do what is right, it should be their priority from the outset – a moral and ethical decision to do what is best for their consumers. Unfortunately, some businesses have lost sight of this. Mandatory regulation is the only way to bring all businesses in line with recommendations – only then will we see significant and impactful improvements in public health. 

We also need to stem the supply of sugar to the UK market, both domestically grown sugar beet, which is having a detrimental impact on our soils, and imported sugar cane. Whilst it remains cheap and plentiful companies will continue to pack our food with it, let us suffer the health consequences, and line their pockets with the profit. In the report, the two cereals with the highest levels of sugar were imports from US. Despite a miserable response to the sugar reduction programme, we at least had one, which is in stark contrast to other countries like the US. With an excess of sugar supply already in the UK the last thing we should be doing is importing even more sugary products. 

Now more than ever we need to provide children with healthy affordable food that will help them thrive, not set them on course for health problems later down the line.