CorpComms Magazine

Food companies have become accustomed to being the nation's darlings. Cadbury even used to get away with describing its chocolate as 'good for you' because of its high milk and calcium content, while the Egg Marketing Board once attributed such magical qualities to the humble hen's egg that the nation was advised to 'go to work' on one.

Now, however, food companies are being blamed for a crisis that has left the UK's children waddling toward the grave with a king-sized bag of Maltesers in one hand and a Double Whopper cheeseburger in the other. According to recent research, one in three children is now overweight or obese in the UK. Obesity in children younger than 11 has risen by more than 40 percent in 10 years and, if this trend continues, half of all children will be obese or overweight by 2020.

In the 1990s fat was a feminist issue, but now it is a parental one. When the latest stat ist ics about childhood obesity were announced, both the media and the public started scouting around for someone to blame. They found three clear scapegoats.

The first, quite predictably, is the government, and in particular its education policies. Scrapping PE lessons in favour of additional mathematics while selling off school playing fields as building land has turned our children into a nation of couch potatoes, newspapers have claimed.

The media have also turned their wrath on the parents, whose busy lifestyles mean their children are left slumped in front of the telly enjoying a healthy dinner of Turkey Twizzlers, fatty chips and sugar-laden tomato ketchup. Making parents feel guilty,however, is just too easy, it appears - so perhaps it was predictable that it is the manufacturers of the Turkey Twizzlers (and other demonised foods) that have been landed with the lion's share of the poor headlines.

Customers have turned on their former favourites in an unprecedented way. Cadbury Schweppes faced flak over its 'Get active' schools promotion, which saw children collect chocolate wrappers in order to obtain sports equipment for their classrooms. Soft drinks manufacturers have been forced to withdraw vending machines from school corridors or offer only water, amid fears their products make children both hyperactive and fat.

Buyers being wary

This is not the kind of criticism companies can easily shrug off. Evidence shows they are being hit where it really hurts - in the wallet, as well as the reputation. 'The food industry is acquiring a reputation for dodginess,' warns Richard Watts, childhood obesity campaigner for better food charity Sustain. 'This is a big problem. Customers are very clear that they want to eat healthily, and there is an obvious demand for better food labelling.

'It would be astute of the big multinationals to do something about it, but instead they are leaving a real niche open for smaller players with healthier offerings. They are damaging their brands. It would be much cleverer to make genuine concessions to health.'

As parents vote with their shopping trolleys, the onus is now on the big food-producing multinationals to show they are taking the health of Britain's children seriously. It is a challenge some are tackling better than others.

Food companies have adopted a variety of strategies to make them look like they are taking the criticism seriously. PepsiCo, for instance, recently appointed former health secretary Alan Milburn to sit on its board of nutritional advisers. He predictably received brickbats in the press for the appointment, but the company has said it is part of a commitment to take nutrition seriously.

Other companies have moved to drop 'king-size' chocolate products to prevent a backlash over portion control. These were replaced with 'shareable' products like Mars Duo, which weighs the same as a king-size Mars bar but is broken into two bars. The company says this allows customers to save half until later.

Some firms have also been working on product reformulations. Products such as Walkers Lites, which contain 33 percent less fat than ordinary Walkers crisps, have become hugely popular, while other companies have worked at removing excess salt from baked beans and other tinned food marketed at children.

Defensive manoeuvres

Britvic is just one UK company that has been forced to change its strategy because of the backlash against unhealthy eating and drinking. The company is well known for its wholesome-sounding Robinson's squash drinks, which are marketed squarely at parents who want their children to drink healthily.

However, the company is also heavily involved in the black gold of the soft drinks sector: the cola market. Britvic is PepsiCo's distributor in the UK, and it also works with McDonald's, which places its Robinson's Fruit Shoot drinks in children's Happy Meals.

Julian Mears, media manager at Britvic, says the company's attitude to healthy eating and drinking is now crucial to its survival. 'We saw this move toward healthy eating coming five or six years ago,' he explains. 'In response, we launched lower-sugar content drinks and bought a water business. The dynamic has changed - we have embarked on a process of reducing the amount of sugar in drinks, and we are concentrating on Pepsi Max and Diet Tango. It has become very important to the reputation of the company that we don't just offer a choice of healthy drinks but also relevant labelling information.'

Mears is very positive and upbeat about Britvic's changes to assist a healthy lifestyle, but adds that companies should be able to provide a variety of different options. 'Customers need information to make their own decisions,' he comments, parroting the industry line on the whole obesity issue. 'Then they can choose.'

It says much for the fear engendered in the industry by childhood obesity that many companies are not happy to talk about it in their own right. Masterfoods, part of the multinational Mars, will not even reissue the press release the company sent out to announce that it would stop marketing its sweets to children. And the company refused to put up a spokesperson to talk to CorpComms for this article.

Instead, it refers journalists to the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which has been representing the industry over the whole issue. Members of the federation include Cadbur y Schweppes, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola, Heinz and Nestlé.

Julian Hunt, director of communications for the federation, says trying to contend with issues surrounding childhood obesity is a 'huge challenge' for the industry. 'This is one area where we have really shown we can put aside fierce competition and work together,' he remarks.

Mixed signals

The federation's strategy for dealing with accusations it has caused an obesity crisis has several strands. One is food labelling, where the FDF is struggling to get the government to accept its preferred method of showing how healthy a food is, rather than accepting the Food Standards Agency's (FSA) own 'traffic light' system, which labels all foods red, amber or green.

The FDF's members would rather see food labelled based on how much of the 'guideline daily amount' of sugar, fat and salt each product provides. It argues that the government's traffic light system unnecessarily vilifies certain foods, with family favourites such as Marmite being labelled red because of a high salt content, even though most people use only a tiny scraping of the spread. 'It's a complex area,' Hunt admits. 'No one has a magic bullet - both the government and the FDF are trying to do the best for consumers.'

However, the federation's struggles against the government's labelling system have been persistently described in the media as a 'food labelling war', and experts believe this has damaged the FDF's reputation with consumers.

Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, sits on the National Obesity Forum where he deals with issues surrounding children and nutrition. He says the food labelling fight does not paint the industry in the best light. He believes customers will begin to notice which of the food companies are prepared to use the FSA's traffic light system and will wonder why others are reluctant.

'The discerning buyer will start to go with those companies that have decided to use traffic lights,' he predicts. 'That has the stamp of the FSA on it. With the other companies, buyers will wonder why they did not come on board before and will have a negative view of them.'

Advertising breaks

Another major issue these companies face is advertising their products to children. Sustain estimates that £480 mn is spent each year on television advertisements directly targeted at children that feature products high in fat, salt and sugar. In February, media regulator Ofcom brought in new rules on advertising junk food to children.

Under these new regulations, companies are banned from advertising products with high salt, fat or sugar content that are aimed at children during times when large numbers of children are watching television.

However, the new rules do not go as far as some campaigners had hoped. They had argued for a total ban on children's food advertising before the 9 pm watershed, arguing that around 70 percent of the television children watch is outside the hours of so-called children's TV.

The campaigners believe the food industry's vociferous complaining about this possibility has done its reputation no good at all. Indeed, a recent British Heart Foundation survey found 68 percent of parents are in favour of pre-9 pm junk food restrictions, with only 7 percent against.

Fry describes Ofcom's decision as a 'tragedy'. 'The advertisers should have agreed to ban all of these adverts before 9 pm, irrespective of the audience,' he insists. And Watts agrees. 'Companies are trying to show they are doing something without doing very much,' he complains. 'This is patchy and extremely disappointing.'

Which?, the consumers' association, believes companies are now using tricks to market food to children. These include competitions on company websites that are clearly aimed at teenagers, and online games that encourage children to give out their email addresses to food companies. But Hunt claims advertising to children has a 'muted effect on their food choices', and says 'a lot of the debate on this has been based on empty rhetoric.'

Like many in the food industry, Hunt believes the business should not be blamed for current problems, and adds that it is 'somewhat demonised' in the media for its role in a crisis that has as much to do with a lack of activity as it has to do with availability of junk food.

'We want to be a responsible partner with the government and others, trying to find solutions,' he says. 'We want to be part of the solution, not always being painted as the problem. Everyone has a role to play in making sure the customer is better informed.'

There are few other soft targets to blame for childhood obesity, however, so it looks like these companies are going to have to keep taking the flak. If not the biscuit.

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