Nestlé today announced the global Nestlé for Healthier Kids initiative with the goal of helping 50 million children lead healthier lives by 2030.
The initiative includes the further development of healthier products and guidance for families on nutrition and exercise, with Nestlé accelerating the transformation of its food and beverage products worldwide. In 2017 alone, the company launched more than 1,000 new products globally to meet the nutritional needs of children.
Nestlé Australia CEO Sandra Martinez said: “Childhood is a time where life-long habits are formed. We want to help parents make healthier choices for their children. We will achieve this by building and sharing greater nutrition knowledge, supporting physical activity programs, and offering tastier and healthier choices.
“In Australia, Nestlé has been providing curriculum aligned resources for primary school teachers on nutrition and physical activity since 2001 through our Healthy Active Kids program,” Ms Martinez said.
“Through our Milo partnership with AFL we’re helping inspire kids to get outdoors and be active, while Maggi is helping families across the region to learn to cook healthier and tastier meals.
“Under Nestlé for Healthier Kids we will continue our commitment to these programs and continue to transform our products.”
Nestlé reformulates around one third of its products around the world each year. It will use its industry-leading innovation capability to further enhance foods and beverages for children with even more vegetables, fibre-rich grains and micronutrients. Nestlé will also continue to reduce sugars, salt and saturated fats.
Some examples of changes and initiatives undertaken by Nestlé Australia include:
• Cutting the sugar in Uncle Tobys Cheerios by 26.5% to under 1 teaspoon per serve, while lowering sodium and boosting fibre and whole grain, through a series of four recipe changes since 2008;
• Offering a more nutritious alternative to conventional Maggi 2 Minute Noodles with Maggi Whole Grain Noodles, which are baked with less than 1% fat, and reducing sodium in our most popular Maggi 2 Minute Noodles by up to 55% since 2005;
• Increasing whole grains and fibre by at least 40% across the entire Uncle Tobys Muesli Bar range. We halved saturated fat and reduced sugar by almost 40% in our yogurt muesli bars.
• Adding vitamin D to Milo Cereal in 2018; a single 30g serve of Milo Cereal provides 25% of the recommended dietary intake of vitamin D to help meet the nutritional needs of children.
For more than a decade, Nestlé has improved the nutritional value of its products. With Nestlé for Healthier Kids, the company pledges to continue this work for the long term. Its immediate global goals by 2020 are to:
• Add at least 750 million portions (80g) of vegetables to its products;
• Add at least 300 million portions (16g) of fibre-rich grains, pulses, nuts & seeds to its products;
• Further reduce sugars by 5%. Since 2000, the company has reduced sugars by over 34%;
• Further reduce salt by 10%. Since 2005, the company has reduced salt by over 20%;
• Complete the commitment taken in 2014, to reduce saturated fats by 10% in all relevant products that do not meet WHO recommendations.