Public Consultation: Improving commercial foods for infants and young children

Risks and limitations

• Success of this approach is dependent on industry uptake of the voluntary program to have the intended impact. Voluntary recommendations and targets may not receive sufficient industry uptake to make significant improvements to commercial foods for infants and young children.
• No obligations for industry to adopt or adhere to targets or guidance developed.
• Current voluntary programs such as the Healthy Food Partnership Reformulation Program and Health Star Rating labelling system have not had widespread industry uptake which indicates that an additional voluntary program may also not be widely adopted by industry. However, smaller, and more targeted voluntary initiatives for specific foods or issues may have more success.
• Voluntary measures do not create a level playing field, potentially penalising those that do participate by way of increased costs both via implementing the changes needed to amend products, and increased costs associated with higher iron ingredients.
• Consumers may not be able to identify whether a product has improved its composition for nutrients that are not part of the standard declarations in the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP).
• Success of educational resources is contingent on effective dissemination to relevant target audiences.
• Education interventions can have limited reach and may not benefit all populations.

Composition
Governments could work with industry to voluntarily improve the composition of commercial foods for infants and young children with a focus on iron, sugars, and sodium.

Approaches for consideration include:

• Establishing guidance for ingredient use in ready to eat meals for infants and toddlers. For example: use of iron rich ingredients and their minimum iron content, removal of fruit from savoury infant foods (pouches or cans), encouraging use of allergens in formulation.
• Establishing sugar and sodium targets for infant and toddler foods under the Australian Healthy Food Partnership Reformulation Program or New Zealand Heart Foundation Reformulation Program (funded by Health New Zealand). There are already targets established for sugar and sodium in these programs for other foods which has led to improvements in the composition of the food supply. For example, in the first two years of the Healthy Food Partnership Reformulation Program participating companies have removed approximately 208 tonnes of table salt, 261 tonnes of sugar and 470 tonnes of saturated fat from the food supply[92, 93]. Despite these positive results, there is low company participation in the reformulation program.
• Development of trans-Tasman Industry Code of Practice to promote a wider range of foods that align with dietary guidance for infants and young children.

Labelling
Governments could work with industry to voluntarily improve the labelling of commercial foods for infants and young children. Industry –led approaches could also be adopted. Texture of products and appropriateness for different ages would also be considered through labelling approaches.

This could include implementing guidance for ingredients in product names to be listed in the order of prominence reducing the number of claims made on products to provide more useful information to consumers on the appropriateness of the product. There could also be guidance to industry about use of characters on food packages.

Education and Information
Improve information for health professionals and caregivers on nutritional requirements for infants and young children. This should include regular updates to guidelines and education campaigns to highlight the importance of good nutrition for infants and young children.

Approaches for consideration include:

• Improving trans-Tasman information for health professionals and consumers on nutritional requirements for infants and young children.
• Developing plain English and translated (and tailored) resources for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) groups, including Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.