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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7504100 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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