Abstract
The food industry holds great potential for driving consumers to adopt healthy food choices as (re)formulation of foods can improve the nutritional quality of these foods. Reformulation has been identified as a cost-effective intervention in addressing non-communicable diseases as it does not require significant alterations of consumer behaviour and dietary habits. Nutrient profiling (NP), the science of categorizing foods based on their nutrient composition, has emerged as an essential tool and is implemented through many different profiling systems to guide reformulation and other nutrition policies. NP systems should be adapted to their specific purposes as it is not possible to design one system that can equally address all policies and purposes, e.g. reformulation and labelling. The present paper discusses some of the key principles and specificities that underlie a NP system designed for reformulation with the example of the Nestlé nutritional profiling system. Furthermore, the impact of reformulation at the level of the food product, dietary intakes and public health are reviewed. Several studies showed that food and beverage reformulation, guided by a NP system, may be effective in improving population nutritional intakes and thereby its health status. In order to achieve its maximum potential and modify the food environment in a beneficial manner, reformulation should be implemented by the entire food sector. Multi-stakeholder partnerships including governments, food industry, retailers and consumer associations that will state concrete time-bound objectives accompanied by an independent monitoring system are the potential solution.
Highlights
In its 2013–2020 action plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, the WHO highlighted the importance of an environment that fosters healthy diets with reduced levels of sugars, sodium, and saturated- and trans-fatty acids[1]
This review will discuss the role of nutrient profiling (NP) systems in the reformulation of food products as a means for improving diet and population health using the example of the Nestlé nutritional profiling system (NNPS), a system globally used to guide innovation and reformulation of food and beverage products
NP systems use a certain number of inputs to generate scores or rankings that reflect the degree of ‘healthfulness’ of a particular food product[16]
Summary
7 % reduction in the sodium content of UK Modelled impact: 0·9 g/d reduction reduction program foods from 2006 to 2011. The final test of a successful product reformulation is whether or not the reformulated foods are purchased and consumed[48] This underscores the importance of designing NP systems for food reformulation with nutritional targets that take into account sensory and technical challenges. Salt plays a role in the preservation and structure of food products (such as dressings, bread and meats), and has a strong effect on the final taste and consumer acceptance[50] To this end, stealth reformulation can be used successfully, as evidenced by the gradual reductions in salt consumption, which was achieved in part due to product reformulation[51,52,53]. Studies demonstrated that diets containing a higher amount of products meeting front-of-pack nutritional targets were associated with an overall reduction in disease risks[57,58]
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