Under Pressure, Food Producers Shift to Healthier Products

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Under Pressure, Food Producers Shift to Healthier Products

By Melanie Warner

The New York Times Friday 16 December 2005 For years, food

companies have responded to criticism about the nutritional quality of their

products by maintaining that all food can fit into a balanced diet. There are no

bad foods, they argue, just bad diets. That is starting to change. As

major food producers face scrutiny over their role in contributing to increasing

childhood obesity rates, they are under pressure to make fundamental shifts in

the way they sell their products to American children. Kraft and PepsiCo

have created rating systems to designate healthier foods. McDonald's said it

would begin printing detailed nutrition information on its packaging in

February. Entertainment companies are also feeling pressure. Walt Disney

said that beginning in the next few months, it would remove characters like

Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and Chicken Little from candy and food products it

determined to be unhealthy for children. And in partnership with

a major supermarket chain, which Disney would not identify, the company will

put Mickey Mouse thumbs-up seals on items like bananas and on store-brand

products like pasta and juices. A Disney spokesman, Gary Foster, said, " We

wanted to give parents healthier alternatives and help in reversing obesity

trends. " None of these changes go as far as the Institute of Medicine, a

leading scientific advisory group, urges. In a report last week, an institute

committee of 16 nutrition and marketing experts called for sweeping changes in

the way the food industry markets its products to children. It added that 80

percent to 97 percent of the food products now aimed at children and teenagers

are of " poor nutritional quality. " The food industry is divided over how

it should respond. General Mills and Kellogg, which derive a large part of their

revenue from products aimed at children, are resisting changing many of their

practices. Kraft and PepsiCo, whose products are aimed at a

broader section of consumers, seem more willing to adapt. The Grocery

Manufacturers Association, a large lobbying group, is resisting the development

of an industrywide rating system for healthier foods - one of the leading

recommendations in the institute's report. And Disney's efforts only go so

far. Although it dropped an exclusive deal with McDonald's, some movies may

continue to use tie-ins to McDonald's and other fast-food chains. Today,

characters from " The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe "

start appearing in boxes of the chain's Happy Meals. So far, just one

company, Kraft Foods, has significantly curtailed the amount of unhealthy food

it markets to children under 12. The rest of the food and restaurant industry

has yet to take any major steps in line with the report's major recommendations.

While companies have made some efforts to reformulate products and introduce

healthier offerings (removing trans fatty acids, for instance),

consumer advocates and nutrition experts say that many of these attempts fall

woefully short. For instance, General Mills, the company that spends the

most money marketing packaged food to children, promotes the addition of whole

grains to its lines of cereal, even though many of these are 40 percent sugar

and aggressively advertised to children. Earlier this year, General Mills

tried to provide more nutrition information by displaying icons in a product's

" Goodness Corner. " But a consumer watchdog criticized the move because

there are 26 different icons, rather than a clear-cut rating system. " I

work in this area and I don't even know what some of those things are referring

to, " said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science

in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group. A spokeswoman for

General Mills, Marybeth Thorsgard, declined to comment on the Institute of

Medicine's report, saying that the company had not had a

chance to read through the 600-page document. But in a presentation this

year, General Mills vigorously defended its cereal. " We strongly think

that products like cereal can be advertised responsibly to children, " said

Kendall J. Powell, the company's chief operating officer, at an Institute of

Medicine workshop in January. " Cereal eaters, including kids who eat

presweetened cereals, are getting a good start to their day. " Kellogg, the

second-largest packaged-food marketer to children, also said it did not want to

comment on the Institute of Medicine's recommendations. In a statement, a

spokeswoman, Jill Saletta, said the company offered a " wide variety of products "

and " remains a committed partner in the fight against obesity. " ConAgra

Foods and Mars said they were focusing on developing healthier foods rather than

restricting marketing or rating their products. McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's

and Nestlé had no comment on the report. Kraft and PepsiCo

also appear to be alone in supporting the idea of an industrywide rating system

for healthier foods. " I think there may be an antitrust issue, " said

Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

" Whenever people talk about the industry getting together and deciding which

products to sell, it sounds to me like something we could get sued for. "

Some legal experts said, though, that food companies were more likely to face

lawsuits if they did not think proactively and listen to criticism. N.

Louise Ellingsworth, a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave, which has worked

in the past with food companies, said: " Sometimes, companies think that by

making changes you risk calling attention to yourself and focusing on the

problem. But for companies who don't act, their mistakes will become obvious

years later. The plaintiffs' bar is watching very closely, and everyone's got a

target on their back right now. " PepsiCo insists that its " Smart

Spot " program for identifying healthier products is more a shrewd business

decision than a form of legal insurance. The company said that sales from the

Smart Spot products grew by 13 percent in the first three quarters of the year,

three times as fast as the rest of its business. " We believe this is a huge

business opportunity, " said Brock Leach, the chief innovation officer.

Although many nutrition and public health advocates have applauded Kraft and

PepsiCo for breaking with the rest of the food industry, they say that both

companies have yet to go the distance. Some of their children's products, for

instance, are hardly carrots and broccoli - sugar-free Kool-Aid with artificial

sweeteners, Kraft macaroni and cheese with processed cheese, baked Cheetos and

peanut butter Cap'n Crunch cereal. And Pepsi has not stopped marketing its

non-Smart Spot products like regular Cheetos and Gatorade to children. It said

that by early in 2006, half of all its spending on

advertising aimed at children would be for Smart Spot products, an increase

from 38 percent this year. But Susan Linn, associate director of Judge

Baker Children's Center, a nonprofit group in Boston, asked: " What's the point

of doing 50 percent? If they were really concerned about children, they would

stop completely. " Licensing of favorite characters also continues to be an

enormously popular and effective marketing tactic that not even Kraft is certain

it wants to abandon. The company, which features Dora the Explorer on its

Nabisco Teddy Grahams and Fairly OddParents on Cheese Nips crackers, said that

its licensing policy " is being discussed. " The question is not even on the

table at PepsiCo. Mr. Leach called the focus on marketing methods like character

licensing " misplaced energy. " " Our point of view, " he said, " is let's

focus on making healthier products, and that will eventually move the whole

marketing mix. " While the members of the Institute

of Medicine committee said they were willing to trust the industry to make

voluntary changes, they have warned that if there is not significant improvement

in the types of products marketed to children after two years, they will press

Congress to take action. J. Michael McGinnis, a senior scholar at the

institute and chairman of the committee, called for the creation of a division

in the federal Department of Health and Human Services to assess the food

industry's progress. Not surprisingly, food companies say that they, too,

think self-regulation can work and cite the Children's Advertising Review Unit,

a group financed by food, toy and media companies to monitor children's

advertising. But Elizabeth Lascoutx, director of the Children's

Advertising Review Unit, said the group did not concern itself with junk-food

marketing. Its job, she said, was to make sure that ads aimed at children were

fair and accurate, not to see if they featured healthful or low-calorie

products. " We don't set standards or get involved in good food, bad food

issues, " Ms. Lascoutx said. " We're lawyers, not nutritionists. " Mr.

McGinnis said he thought that the scope of the Children's Advertising Review

Unit should be expanded to include the nutritional quality of children's food,

though that recommendation is not part of the report.

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