Kellogg’s Fights British Government’s Ban On The Promotion Of Foods High In Fat, Sugar, and Salt

Kellogg’s is mounting a legal challenge against new Government rules which would stop some of the company’s cereals being prominently displayed in food stores. JKellogg’s/PA

The food giant is mounting a legal challenge against new government rules to tackle child obesity that would stop some of the company’s cereals from being prominently displayed in food stores.

The new regulations come into effect in England in October and restrict the promotion of food and drink that is high in fat, salt, and sugar. While some welcome the new rules, others have called the restrictions “nannying nonsense.”

Eaten with Milk

Kellogg’s said in a statement that it has “tried to have a reasonable conversation with Government” without success.

Kellogg’s UK managing director Chris Silcock said the company believed that “the formula being used by the Government to measure the nutritional value of breakfast cereals is wrong and not implemented legally.”

“It measures cereals dry when they are almost always eaten with milk. All of this matters because, unless you take account of the nutritional elements added when cereal is eaten with milk, the full nutritional value of the meal is not measured,” said Silcock.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Breakfast cereals contribute 7 percent—a significant amount—to the average daily free sugar intakes of children.”

“Restricting the promotion and advertising of less healthy foods is an important part of the cross-government strategy to halve childhood obesity by 2030, prevent harmful diseases, and improve healthy life expectancy, so we can continue to level up health across the nation.”

Regulations

Regulations will also include requiring businesses to phase out their offering of multi-buy promotions such as “buy one get one free” or “3 for 2” offers on fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS) products. Less healthy promotions will also no longer be featured in key locations in stores and online. Free refills of sugary soft drinks will also be prohibited in restaurants.

The spokesman added that obesity costs the NHS more than £6 billion ($7.52 billion) a year and is the second biggest cause of cancer in the UK.

Chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance John O'Connell told The Epoch Times by email that “the government’s obesity strategy leaves slim pickings for struggling families who rely on affordable meals to put food on the table.”

“Outright ad bans on ordinary foods and ending ‘buy one get one’ free will be a hammer blow to hard-pressed shoppers, who don’t need [Prime Minister Boris Johnson] piling on the pounds to their weekly food bill. Misguided ministers must stop this nannying nonsense and think of better ways to help taxpayers keep healthy,” said O'Connell.

Professor Graham MacGregor Chairman of Action on Sugar and Action on Salt, a charity that informs and influences sugar reduction policies in the UK, told The Epoch Times it was “odd” that Kellog’s announced a few weeks ago “that they are doing great work reducing the salt in their cereals, then announced today that they are going to sue the government.”

In April, Kellogg’s announced that salt in one of its biggest cereal brands—Special K—had been reduced by an average of 16.7 percent as part of its pledge to remove at least 10 percent of sugars and 20 percent of salt from its children’s cereals across European and UK brands.

Obesity

MacGregor, who is also the Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine (Barts and The London) and Honorary Consultant Physician at Queen Mary, University of London, agreed with the government plans and restrictions. He said that if “they don’t succeed we are all going to die of obesity in a few years’ time,” noting that areas that are most deprived are being hit.

“The UK has one of the worst childhood rates of obesity in Europe and we need to do something about it as obesity kills you, through itself and through type two diabetes,” he said. According to the Nuffield Trust, in England in 2016/17, nearly a quarter (23.6 percent) of children in reception were obese or overweight.

“We have very successfully reduced salt in the UK.  We led the world in the early 2000s, getting the salt out of food without people noticing. That is in bread, cereals, take away meals. That’s a brilliant public health policy as salt intake has fallen in the UK, which is a big cause of blood pressure, the biggest killer in the world for the strokes and heart attacks it causes,” said MacGregor.

“Obesity is a world-wide problem. When the global food industry moves into any country, you immediately start getting obesity. We are seeing that in China and India now,” he added.

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