Bolder action is needed from businesses and policy makers to increase the production of healthier foods and promote healthier diets.
That was the key message from the latest Global Access to Nutrition Index, the first since 2021 and the fifth in total. Produced by global non-profit, ANTi, the index assessed how 30 of the world’s largest global food and beverage manufacturers are contributing to addressing malnutrition in all its forms, including obesity and undernutrition.
Despite pockets of progress on selling and marketing healthier products, over the past two decades obesity rates have surged, according to ANTi, while progress on addressing global undernutrition has slowed.
The shift toward greater processed food consumption, including in low- and middle-income countries, is identified as a major contributor to obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases. ANTi also noted how the rising use of weight loss medications has started to disrupt the packaged foods sector in high-income countries.
The index ranks companies across a range of indicators including the healthiness of their products, responsible marketing and labelling. It found a wide variation in performance between companies, some of whom scored relatively strongly across all indicators while others fell down on many aspects of supporting good nutrition. Danone topped the overall ranking with Lactalis judged to be the worst performer.
ANTi said companies’ healthier sales targets have considerable scope for improvement with just one business having set a target to increase its proportion of healthier product sales using an internationally recognised nutrient profiling model (NPM).
It did however recognise important progress in several areas with 30% of companies now using an internationally recognised NPM to assess and classify products as ‘healthier’ for reporting purposes.
More companies have also set higher age thresholds for product marketing and some companies have now set a definition for ‘affordable nutrition’.
There has been a small improvement since 2021 in the overall healthiness of product portfolios with 34% of sales now derived from products classified as healthier under the health star rating (HSR) system. ANTi has set a target that by 2030 at least 50% of portfolio sales come from healthier products.
The cost of malnutrition is expected to exceed $41trn (£32trn) over the next decade, with undernutrition costing $21trn and overweight/obesity $20trn.
ANTi concluded that it will not be possible to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030, as targeted in the sustainable development goals, without fundamental food system changes.
It called on policy makers and governments to introduce mandatory policies in areas such as front-of-pack labelling and marketing restrictions, and for intervention to make products high in fat, sugar, or salt more expensive and healthier foods more affordable.
It also wants to see governments require that companies publish information on key health metrics such as the percentage of their sales derived from healthier products.
Investors should require that companies disclose information on the healthiness of their product portfolios using a government-endorsed NPM.
ANTi pointed to the business advantage that can be gained by improving the nutritional profile of products, citing research showing that, on average, food companies with broader, healthier food portfolios have higher earnings than their peers.
