Mars Food to promote ‘healthier food choices’ in new campaign

Mars Food has announced a new global programme designed to create and promote healthier food choices, and encourage consumers to cook and share healthier meals.

The Health and Wellbeing Ambition will roll-out over the next five years and will focus on five main areas: improving nutritional content; providing consumers with more nutrition information to help them make more balanced choices; inspiring consumers to cook and eat healthy meals with friends and family; exploring new formats and opportunities to offer products in more places at affordable prices; and providing Mars Food Associates opportunities to improve wellbeing through nutrition education, cooking facilities, and healthier food options. Through these initiatives, Mars Food will encourage families to share 1 billion more healthy meals at dinner tables around the world, the food giant said.

“We’re incredibly proud and excited to share our new five year Health and Wellbeing Ambition,” said Fiona Dawson, global president of Mars food, drinks, and multisales. “This ambition advances our purpose of creating better food today and a better world tomorrow. As a busy mum myself, I know how tricky it can be to find healthy meals which everyone in the family will enjoy, and of course, they often need to be quick and easy to prepare.

“I’m delighted that Mars Food is helping to provide healthy solutions through our famous brands. Our Nutrition Criteria sets a very high standard for our products, and we also want to help our consumers understand the difference between ‘everyday’ and ‘occasional’ products within a balanced diet.”

Through the Health and Wellbeing Ambition, Mars Food will help consumers differentiate and choose between “everyday” and “occasional” options. To maintain the authentic nature of the recipe, some Mars Food products are higher in salt, added sugar or fat. As these products are not intended to be eaten daily, Mars Food will provide guidance to consumers on-pack and on its website regarding how often these meal offerings should be consumed within a balanced diet. The Mars Food website will be updated within the next few months with a list of “occasional” products – those to be enjoyed once per week – and a list of “everyday” products, including those to be reformulated over the next five years to reduce sodium, sugar, or fat.

In addition, Mars Food will improve its nutritional product composition through the reduction of added sugar and sodium and the addition of vegetables and whole grains across its global product portfolio. This builds upon the Mars Food Nutrition Criteria, which was developed based on recommendations from leading public health authorities such as the World Health Organization. Mars Food will reduce sodium by an average of 20% by 2021 and reduce added sugar in a limited number of sauces and light meals by 2018. Additionally, Mars Food will significantly expand multigrain options so that half of all rice products include whole grains and/or legumes.

Mars Food will also ensure all tomato-based jar products include a minimum of one serving of vegetables.

“The food industry has already made great strides in reducing sodium, but we have more work to do to help consumers reduce sodium intake,” added Dawson. “We support release of the US FDA’s draft sodium reduction guidance, because we believe it’s important to begin a stakeholder dialogue about the role industry can play in this critical part of consumers’ diets.

“Cooking and eating healthy meals at home is central to health and wellbeing, and we believe our brands should inspire our consumers to come together over a healthy meal. Mars Food will practice what we preach by starting with our own Associates and helping them make informed, healthier food choices and cook meals together at our sites.”

http://www.foodbev.com/news/mars-food-to-promote-healthier-food-choices-in-new-campaign/?

Coming next North Korea to lead the world on human rights

Thanks for this article ...

I did like these words "Cooking and eating healthy meals at home is central to health and wellbeing"

Which is why on my shopping lists are these types of foods ...






But will Mars see it like this?
Perhaps the big food companies are beginning to realise more and more of us are turning to eating whole fresh foods.
Time will tell (it usually does) how their 'healthier food choices campaign' is received and what it will actually be!

All the best Jan

Well they appear to have admitted that their current/previous foods are none too healthy. But I predict they will make them even less healthy by adding more (wheat) starch, Omega 6 seed oils and other profitable things. 

Unilever boast about influencing the WHO. I'm trying hard to think of a joke involving deaf dumb and blind kids making our dietary decisions for us.

Dolmio sauces, whilst edible in a theoretical sense, will be formally reclassified as an industrial lubricant to prevent confusion, it has been announced today.

Mars is to encourage people to cut down on foods high in sugar and salt by adding ‘Not for human consumption’ labels to its products.

Salt levels in Dolmio pasta sauces are so high they are technically seawater, whilst tests showed sugar levels were high enough to give a bee type two diabetes.

Adverts will be changed to show someone in a diabetic coma with the caption ‘When’s your Dolmio day?’

To meet demands for clearer labelling, many products will be clearly marked ‘For external use only’ and ‘Eat at your own risk’.

The word ‘food’ will be changed to ‘”food'” on all packaging.

A spokesman for Mars foods insisted that Dolmio was perfectly healthy in moderation so long as people don’t exceed the serving suggestion, which is defined as having an atomic weight of 1.00794.

When asked why the company didn’t simply put less sugar and salt in foods, the spokesman looked confused and admitted that was a new one on him.

http://newsthump.com/2016/04/15/mars-to-add-not-for-human-consumption-labels-to-dolmio/

Hahahahahaha