Measuring the Healthiness of the Packaged Food Supply in Australia

Michelle Crino,Bruce Neal,Stefanie Vandevijvere,Gary Sacks,Jacqui Webster,Elizabeth Dunford,Kathy Trieu,Boyd Swinburn,Jason Wu

doi:10.3390/nu10060702

Abstract

The increasing availability of packaged foods plays a key role in nutritional transition. This study examined the healthiness of the Australian packaged food supply using a range of different metrics; 40,664 packaged products from The George Institute’s FoodSwitch database were included. Median and interquartile range (IQR) were determined for each measure of nutrient composition; mean and standard deviation (SD) for the measure based upon Health Star Rating (HSR); and proportions (%) for the measures based upon products with a higher HSR, classification of foods as either core or discretionary, extent of processing and proportions of foods that met reformulation targets for sodium, saturated fat and total sugars. Overall median (IQR) values were 1093 (1256) kJ/100 g for energy, 1.7 (6.3) g/100 g for saturated fat, 5.3 (21.4) g/100 g for total sugars, 163 (423) g/100 g for sodium and 50 (100) g or mL for serving size. Overall mean (SD) HSR was 2.8 (1.4), proportion with HSR < 3.5 was 61.8%, proportion of foods defined as discretionary was 53.0% and proportion of foods defined as highly processed was 60.5%. There were sodium targets set for 21,382/40,664 (53%) foods and achieved for 14,126/40,664 (35%). Corresponding figures for saturated fat were 328/40,664 (0.8%) and 130/40,664 (0.3%). Nutrient profiling, dietary guidelines and the extent of food processing provided comparable assessments of the nutritional quality of Australia’s packaged food supply. Individual measures of nutrient composition did not, but may be of value for identifying specific foods of concern.

Highlights

Packaged food predominates food purchases in most countries [1,2], and the consumption of packaged foods in developing countries is rapidly increasing [3,4]
Methodology based on nutrient profiling [21], the classification of foods as core or discretionary according to the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADGs) [22,23], the classification of foods based upon their level of processing [24] and the proportion of foods that meet established reformulation targets for sodium, saturated fat and sugars based upon national or international recommendations (Table 1)
Nutrient composition and proportion of products meeting a reformulation target were assessed for 40,664 (100%) foods; nutrient profile for 38,451 (95%) foods; core/discretionary status according to Australian Dietary Guidelines for 37,174 (91%) foods; and extent of processing for 37,348 (92%) foods

Summary

Introduction

Packaged food predominates food purchases in most countries [1,2], and the consumption of packaged foods in developing countries is rapidly increasing [3,4]. Technological developments in food processing along with advancements in food distributions systems have seen traditional wet markets for fresh foods replaced with supermarkets and hypermarkets which are abundant in packaged foods [5,6]. The increasing availability of packaged foods plays a key role in the nutrition transition, whereby nations move away from a traditional diet based on wholefoods to a diet of convenience [3,9,10]. The over-consumption of energy-dense, nutrient poor foods is a well-established risk factor for obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) [4,5,13,14].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion