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Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018

The food industry has an important role to play in efforts to improve population diets. This study aimed to benchmark the comprehensiveness, specificity and transparency of nutrition-related policies and commitments of major food companies in Australia. In 2018, we applied the Business Impact Assess...

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Autores principales: Sacks, Gary, Robinson, Ella, Cameron, Adrian J., Vanderlee, Lana, Vandevijvere, Stefanie, Swinburn, Boyd
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32842662
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176118
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author Sacks, Gary
Robinson, Ella
Cameron, Adrian J.
Vanderlee, Lana
Vandevijvere, Stefanie
Swinburn, Boyd
author_facet Sacks, Gary
Robinson, Ella
Cameron, Adrian J.
Vanderlee, Lana
Vandevijvere, Stefanie
Swinburn, Boyd
author_sort Sacks, Gary
collection PubMed
description The food industry has an important role to play in efforts to improve population diets. This study aimed to benchmark the comprehensiveness, specificity and transparency of nutrition-related policies and commitments of major food companies in Australia. In 2018, we applied the Business Impact Assessment on Obesity and Population Level Nutrition (BIA-Obesity) tool and process to quantitatively assess company policies across six domains. Thirty-four companies operating in Australia were assessed, including the largest packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers (n = 19), supermarkets (n = 4) and quick-service restaurants (n = 11). Publicly available company information was collected, supplemented by information gathered through engagement with company representatives. Sixteen out of 34 companies (47%) engaged with data collection processes. Company scores ranged from 3/100 to 71/100 (median: 40.5/100), with substantial variation by sector, company and domain. This study demonstrated that, while some food companies had made commitments to address population nutrition and obesity-related issues, the overall response from the food industry fell short of global benchmarks of good practice. Future studies should assess both company policies and practices. In the absence of stronger industry action, government regulations, such as mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling and restrictions on unhealthy food marketing, are urgently needed.
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spelling pubmed-75041002020-09-24 Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018 Sacks, Gary Robinson, Ella Cameron, Adrian J. Vanderlee, Lana Vandevijvere, Stefanie Swinburn, Boyd Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The food industry has an important role to play in efforts to improve population diets. This study aimed to benchmark the comprehensiveness, specificity and transparency of nutrition-related policies and commitments of major food companies in Australia. In 2018, we applied the Business Impact Assessment on Obesity and Population Level Nutrition (BIA-Obesity) tool and process to quantitatively assess company policies across six domains. Thirty-four companies operating in Australia were assessed, including the largest packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers (n = 19), supermarkets (n = 4) and quick-service restaurants (n = 11). Publicly available company information was collected, supplemented by information gathered through engagement with company representatives. Sixteen out of 34 companies (47%) engaged with data collection processes. Company scores ranged from 3/100 to 71/100 (median: 40.5/100), with substantial variation by sector, company and domain. This study demonstrated that, while some food companies had made commitments to address population nutrition and obesity-related issues, the overall response from the food industry fell short of global benchmarks of good practice. Future studies should assess both company policies and practices. In the absence of stronger industry action, government regulations, such as mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling and restrictions on unhealthy food marketing, are urgently needed. MDPI 2020-08-22 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7504100/ /pubmed/32842662 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176118 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sacks, Gary
Robinson, Ella
Cameron, Adrian J.
Vanderlee, Lana
Vandevijvere, Stefanie
Swinburn, Boyd
Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title_full Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title_fullStr Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title_full_unstemmed Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title_short Benchmarking the Nutrition-Related Policies and Commitments of Major Food Companies in Australia, 2018
title_sort benchmarking the nutrition-related policies and commitments of major food companies in australia, 2018
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32842662
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176118
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