Report of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity March 2016.

As nutrition professionals we understand all too well, the prevalence and incidence of childhood obesity in both Australia and New Zealand. A recent report developed by The Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity in conjunction with The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified that children with obesity are “very likely” to carry their weight into adulthood, putting them at risk of chronic illness which in turn burdens the public health system. The report provides a number of recommendations from the commission to help address the issue of childhood obesity.

Working for a food company gives you a unique and varied perspective on what the food industry can do to help and we welcomed this report and its recommendations.

Various recommendations, for the food industry, were put forward including better nutritional information, implementing interpretive front of pack labelling and increasing access to healthy foods in disadvantaged settings.

We can honestly say that Kellogg is on the right track to implementing these initiatives.

We now have the government’s Health Star rating system, which is an interpretive front of pack labelling system, on all our cereal products. In fact, 70% of our cereal portfolio carries a 4 to 5 health star rating and with our ambitious innovation and renovation agenda we are hoping that number will be even higher. You may have seen that we have renovated some of our oldest recipes for Special K and Nutri-Grain to make them better for you - and that’s just the beginning. We are also in the process of simplifying our Health Star labelling, based on feedback, so that it’s easier for our consumers to understand.

We have always been diligent about our nutrition labelling and our team has some of Australia’s best regulatory minds working to help us. Every single piece of information that leaves Kellogg is seen by a nutrition regulatory expert and a nutrition scientist. This is very important to us and we take our credibility very seriously as one of Australia’s largest food manufacturers.

Kellogg are signatories to the Responsible Marketing to Children Initiative and make sure that our advertisements featuring children’s foods, both healthy and treat foods, are aimed at parents and aired in adult viewing slots.

We also give back to the community through our Breakfast Buddies and Breakfast for Better Days initiatives. Every year we donate thousands of boxes of breakfast cereals to school programs and community groups around the country to ensure kids, who are not accessing a healthy breakfast, have something to fill their tummies at the start of the school day. We also work with Food Bank and Oz Harvest to help Australians in need and in the last three years, through breakfast for Better Days, we donated more than 17 million serves of cereal for the disadvantaged.

We are all systems go at Kellogg and there is more to come from us, so stay in touch. Sign up to our newsletter if you don’t already receive it and we will make sure you are up to date with what we are up to. We also love hearing from you so drop us a line with questions or feedback.

Cheers
Gina
Senior Nutrition Manager, Kellogg Australia and New Zealand