Tag Archive for: food marketing

Fresh calls for regulation of junk food marketing in Germany: ‘Voluntary commitments cannot work’

Food Navigator

Voluntary codes to limit the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children ‘cannot work’, according to the Federation of German Consumer Organisations. The association is calling for tougher action. The research found that existing voluntary commitments exclude important forms of marketing like packaging and digital exposure and offer numerous loopholes due to vague definitions. Read more

 

Differential exposure to, and potential impact of, unhealthy advertising to children by socio-economic and ethnic groups: a systematic review of the evidence

MDlinx . com
Researchers conducted this systematic review to explore the differential potential exposure and impact of unhealthy food advertising to children according to socio‐economic position and/or ethnicity. Unhealthy food advertisement is overwhelmingly exposed to children from minority and socio-economically deprived communities. In order to boost children’s diets and eliminate inequalities in dietary consumption, laws to limit unhealthy food advertising to children should be enforced. Read the article here

Demand for s’mores spiked in areas with most COVID-19 cases, the CEO of Hershey says — and the company tracked infection rates to decide its ad spend

Business Insider
As COVID-19 spread around the US, so did the demand for s’mores, according to The Hershey Company.  “This past year, we noticed that wherever COVID case counts were elevated, we were seeing increasing sales of s’mores ingredients,” Hershey CEO Michele Buck told CNBC.  The company said chocolate sales were up to 50% higher in locations where COVID infection rates spiked, CNBC reported. The Pennsylvania chocolate maker adjusted its digital marketing to pinpoint these areas, Buck said. Read more

Throne speech mustn’t neglect crucial Liberal pre-pandemic health commitments

CBC

Doug Roth, CEO of Heart & Stroke, writes that the government cannot simply forget its pre-pandemic health commitments, it has an obligation to address pharmacare, charities, food and vaping regulations.  Read the article here

Mexico’s new warning labels on junk food meet supersized opposition from U.S., EU

Chronicle Herald 
The United States, European Union, Canada and Switzerland, home to some of the world’s biggest food companies, have pressed Mexico to delay upcoming health warnings on processed food and drinks, a World Trade Organization document showed. The Mexican standard, scheduled to take effect in October, will require front-of-pack nutrition labelling that clearly describes the health risks posed when those products are high in sugars, calories, salt, and saturated or trans fat. Read the article here

Action on Sugar says UK’s oral health likely to worsen following COVID-19

Dentistry Online 

Katharine Jenner, nutritionist and campaign director at Action on Sugar, said COVID-19 could mean certain risk factors lead to worse oral health outcomes. The UK based campaign group said COVID-19 has led to popular companies heavily advertising unhealthy food and drink products – but little has been done to curb it. This follows the delay of a report on sugar reduction within the confectionary sector, which has been held up as a result of the pandemic. Progress by manufacturers has stalled against the Public Health England set target of 20% in voluntary cuts by 2020. Read the article here

Cereal numbers may be deceiving

Reuters (appeared in the Montreal Gazette)

Parents may allow kids to eat too much sugary breakfast cereal because the suggested serving size is smaller than they realize, a new U.S. study suggests. The cereals with the most sugar also tend to have child-oriented marketing such as mascots, games, colours and fun shapes, researchers found in a study of brands that have pledged to help reduce added sugars in kids’ diets. “When you compute the amount of sugar by weight of the cereal, the sugar content is quite high and higher than federal recommendations,” said Jennifer Emond of the Dartmouth School of Medicine in Hanover, N.H., who wasn’t involved in the study. Read the article here

You can find the study here (paywall)

The scoop on Unilever’s new marketing commitments

Strategy Magazine

Strategy magazine looks at Unilever’s decision to stop marketing and advertising foods and beverages to children under the age of 12 in traditional media, and below the age of 13 on social media. The article features an interview with Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition co-chair Manuel Arango. Read the article here

Are Foods Labeled ‘Low Sugar’ Misleading Consumers?

New York Times

A recent study that examined millions of grocery store purchases in the United States found that dubious claims about sugar, salt and fat were common. Many fruit juices that claimed to be low in sugar, for example, tended to have added sugars and more sugar than comparable juices with no claims on them. Some breakfast cereals labeled low in calories had more calories than the cereals that did not make calorie claims. Read the article here.

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Global child health study calls on Canada to act

Guelph Mercury

Canadian child health advocate, Zulfi Bhutta of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, is among a team of global experts urging “a radical rethink” of how a warming planet, aggressive advertising and economic inequities pose an “immediate threat” to the health and well-being of young people worldwide. A report launched Wednesday by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and The Lancet concludes children face urgent peril from ecological degradation, climate change and aggressive marketing tactics that push heavily processed fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco. Read the article