The powerful junk food lobby still faces a tough fight

CI’s Food Safety and Nutrition Programme Officer Anna Glayzer looks at the countries doing the best work in controlling food marketing to children and what it will take to motivate the rest.

Speaking at the European Network on Reducing Marketing Pressure on Children in Copenhagen last month gave me the opportunity to take stock of the efforts being made around the world to tackle junk food marketing.

Our member organisations are doing some fantastic work all over the world, most recently in Chinese Taipei, Fiji, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa and the UK.

The breadth of activity shows that, not only is the targeting of children by advertisers of high fat, salt and sugar foods an almost universal health threat, but also that consumer groups, along with other NGOs, are a vital part of efforts to protect our most vulnerable consumers.

But is our campaigning really making a difference? Is it actually pushing governments and companies to act?

A few national governments around the world are taking encouraging steps towards tighter controls on food marketing. For example, the Fijian Ministry of Health is currently drafting regulations. Also, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland has drafted a code which includes applying restrictions to advertising aired during programmes for which more than 50% of the audience is younger than 18.

This code has prompted complaints from the Irish Breakfast Cereal Association, who lamented that it would result in the banning of ads for 75% of breakfast cereals. Given the nutritional quality of many children’s cereals, I would take this as an encouraging sign.

Meanwhile, in Norway the government is developing new legal restrictions on food marketing, including the development of a rigorous new nutrient profiling model. Both the Irish code and the Norwegian legal restrictions are due to come into force on 1 January 2013.

At the international level there is also progress. The World Health Organization (WHO) has worked extensively on marketing to children. It has just published A Framework for Implementing the Set of Recommendations on the Marketing of Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages to Children.

As the title suggests, the Framework is intended to assist national governments in implementing the recommendations agreed by the World Health Assembly in 2010, in which governments were urged to act to protect children.

The WHO is also producing a manual for governments to use to develop a nutrient profiling model suitable for appliction to restrictions on marketing. Similarly, CI’s Manual on Monitoring Food Marketing is suitable for both governments and NGOs to use.

There is no shortage of tools on offer to help governments take simple, cost-effective, preventative measures on public health. The problem is that not enough governments are willing to commit to tackling non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This was borne out by last September’s much anticipated UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs, which resulted in a disappointing output. A political declaration was produced but no time-bound targets were agreed. The voluntary targets since proposed by the WHO look set to be watered down further following consultation with member states.

As Jane Landon of the UK’s National Heart Forum pointed out whilst speaking in Copenhagen, the food industry has ‘wriggle room’ when it comes to re-formulating high fat, salt and sugar food or front-of-pack labelling. It cannot, however, be expected to co-operate meaningfully with measures for which the ultimate goal is: sell less processed food.

The only really effective solution therefore is legislation. The onus, for the time being, is on national governments to be a bit more like Norway.

Consumers can make a difference to conditions in the banana trade

Eliana Guarnoni of CI’s Italian member organisation Altroconsumoexplores the production conditions behind the world’s most popular fruit.

Bananas are the world’s most popular and internationally-traded fruit. The industry is an important source of employment and income for millions of people in developing countries, but all too often is associated with negative economic, social and environmental impacts.

With more and more of us concerned about the story behind the food we buy, consumer rights groups are increasingly looking at the ethics of the tropical fruit trade.  CI recently examined conditions within the pineapplesupply chain, and this has led us to take a closer look at the altogether bigger banana trade.

The World Banana Forum (WBF) is the centre for action on this issue. It is a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to improve conditions within the banana supply chain by bringing together producers, retailers, trade unions, NGOs, academics and exporters to share good practice and come up with solutions to the most urgent problems.

Working conditions

While attending the Second Conference of the WBF in Ecuador, I visited banana plantations in El Oro and Los Rios. It was particularly interesting to learn about the intensive use of chemicals in both the plantations and the packing areas.

Workers and the local communities surrounding the plantations have reported increasing levels of disease and believe that these chemicals are responsible.

Specifically, they say a lack of protective equipment and inadequate measures to prevent contamination in surrounding areas are to blame.

Discussing strategies to reduce the negative impact of chemicals on human beings and the environment is a top WBF priority, and in El Oro and Los Rios it was clear to see why.

But chemicals aren’t the only thing that poses a health risk on a banana plantation. The weight of a bunch of bananas is around 40 kilos. Workers in the packing area are required to move hundreds of banana boxes (each weighing 18 kilos) every day.

But workers are paid a piece-rate and in many cases they cannot earn enough to satisfy their family’s basic needs, even if they work 12 hours a day.

Women on the banana plantation

I also attended a meeting focusing specifically on conditions for female workers. Around 30 women from morethan 15 countries shared their views and experiences. It was striking to see how many of the issues facing women are common across borders.  

For example, women find it more difficult than men to get hired by banana producers – even though they could be easily employed in the washing area – and are often dismissed when they get pregnant. Challenges like this make it much harder for women in the major banana-exporting countries to make a significant contribution to their family’s livelihood.

The role of consumers

It was not uncommon to hear consumers used as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for making real improvements to supply chain conditions.

One of the most recurrent arguments is that increased costs translate into higher prices for consumers, which, in turn, causes demand to decrease so that in the end nobody benefits.

But, in fact, studiesconducted in several EU countries show that a significant proportion of consumers are ready to pay more for more sustainable products.

In any case, the price increase is often negligible. It is estimated that plantation workers only receive around 3%-4% of the final retail price paid by consumers.

Raising this share to 5% would mean either asking consumers to pay 0.05 Euros more per kilo or requiring companies and supermarkets to decrease their profits by 1%.

Consumers as a key stakeholder

WBF demonstrated to me that taking part in multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a useful strategy for consumer organisations.

It is clear that the consumer voice – which is so often missing in platforms like this – is very much respected and appreciated by other stakeholders.

WBF also shows how multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a really effective way to focus on the most relevant and urgent issues in a specific sector and to improve the research methodologies used by consumer organisations.

It is also important to demonstrate to other key stakeholders – whether its producers, exporters, trade unions, supermarket chains, intergovernmental organisations, research institutions or NGOs –  that consumer groups are monitoring how products bought by consumers are produced.

This scrutiny can play a vital part in bringing about better conditions in production and trade, while at the same time fostering constructive partnerships between stakeholders to achieve common goals.

Less salt, more consumer information please!

As part of her work for World Salt Awareness Week, Public Health Nutritionist Clare Farrand explains the need for clear food labelling on a global scale.

We are all eating too much salt, and it’s damaging our health. Salt puts up our blood pressure, which leads to strokes and heart attacks, and is also linked to kidney disease, stomach cancer and osteoporosis. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a salt shaker, or caught a glimpse of the white stuff (people tend to hide it when I visit), but just because I don’t use it doesn’t mean I don’t have to worry about my salt intake. That’s because most of the salt that we eat (75%) is hidden in the foods that we buy. 

And I’m not just talking about the foods that taste salty; it’s in the most surprising places such as bread, breakfast cereals, soups, sandwiches, cheese, biscuits, and pastries. Of course, as a nutritionist, I am trained in the art of cracking over-complicated food labels, translating ‘sodium’ to ‘salt’, and know how much salt is high, medium or low, so I shouldbe able to understand what is in my food. But for everyone else, how can you  choose to eat less salt?  

This is why clear food labelling is so important. If  nutrition information was presented in a consistent, easy-to-use way across all products, in all supermarkets, in all  food establishments (eg, restaurants, fast food chains, cafes, and takeaways) in all the land, then we would be able to find out what we are eating. But it is not. Even in the UK where most of the food that we buy in the supermarkets is labelled, the language on the label is often so complicated that most consumers are left confused rather than informed. 

In my opinion, the food industry has a responsibility to tell us what they are putting in our food so that we know what we are eating. In fact, not only do they have a responsibility to tell us what is in our food, they also have a moral obligation to ensure that what they do put in our food is not going to damage our health. 

What is worrying though is that if we did have clear and consistent labelling, and all of our food was shown to be high in salt, fat, and sugar, we STILL wouldn’t have a choice. 

That said, in the UK there has been lots of good work going on to tackle this issue. Many food manufacturers are now starting to gradually reduce the amount of salt in our foods; old favourites such as Kellogg’s Cornflakes and HP Sauce are much less salty than they used to be, also new brands of lower salt foods like Seabrook reduced-salt crisps and Hampstead Farms no-salt sauces are now available.

Sadly this is not  the case around the world. Salt reductions have been made in the UK due to the successful programme that has been in effect since 2005, and through the work of CI member organisation Consensus Action on Salt and Health who continually put pressure on the food industry to reduce the amount of salt they add to our food (see recent survey on pizza). 

What we really need to do now is spread this action worldwide. Many food manufacturers that sell foods in the UK are global organisations. Therefore, the reductions they have made in the UK should easily be made elsewhere. There is no reason why the UK should be so privileged! We must continue to demand less salt and call for clearer food labelling – especially in countries where there currently is none. After all, if we are to take responsibility for our own health, we at least need the information to do so. 

Until the food industry removes the excessive amounts of salt they put in our food, I will be cooking from scratch. After all, if I want to eat salt, I can always add it myself.

So this week, World Salt Awareness Week, let’s all ask for “Si’isi’iange masima”, or, “less salt please”.

Clare Farrand is a Public Health Nutritionist for the salt reduction charity, World Action on Salt and Health (WASH), a global organisation with the mission to reduce population level salt intake around the world.