Unilever is to publish diet scores for its meals portfolio, which incorporates Ben & Jerry’s and Magnum ice-cream, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr inventory cubes, towards exterior well being metrics and set new targets following stress from buyers over weight problems.
The pledge to evaluate efficiency towards six measures, together with the UK’s “excessive in fats, sugar and salt” definition and Europe’s Nutri-Rating, comes after institutional buyers together with €150bn asset supervisor Candriam tabled a shareholder decision on the difficulty.
Unilever, which is the world’s largest ice-cream maker, will set out recent targets by October, and mentioned it might be the primary international meals group to publish dietary efficiency on this means. It should assess efficiency globally and for 16 key markets by product quantity and revenues.
Bigger rival Nestlé has been engaged on new diet requirements. An inside report seen by the Monetary Occasions final yr mentioned greater than 60 per cent of the Swiss group’s mainstream food and drinks merchandise don’t meet a “recognised definition of well being”.
Catherine Howarth, chief govt of ShareAction, a shareholder group that pushed Unilever to make the adjustments, mentioned: “The transparency promised units a brand new normal for the trade. We hope and anticipate that others will observe.”
Traders with $215bn in belongings together with Candriam, US healthcare supplier Trinity Well being and the Better Manchester Pension Fund tabled a decision in January forward of Unilever’s annual common assembly due in Could, urging the FTSE 100 shopper items group to set bold targets for promoting extra wholesome meals.
Ignacio Vazquez, senior supervisor of wholesome markets at ShareAction, mentioned on the time that, regardless of Unilever’s robust sustainability report, “the well being profile of the food and drinks merchandise it sells stays a blind spot”.
“That is stunning, because the fast progress of regulation signifies that well being is a crucial [environmental, social and governance] concern presenting an actual monetary risk to its enterprise.”
The decision has now been withdrawn, and Unilever mentioned it might work intently with ShareAction and its Wholesome Markets Initiative. Hanneke Faber, president of Unilever’s meals division, mentioned the adjustments would “set a brand new benchmark for diet transparency in our trade and speed up our optimistic affect on public well being”.
Unilever’s present targets for its meals and refreshment arm, which has €20bn of annual revenues, embody doubling the variety of merchandise offering “optimistic diet” by 2025.
The corporate had thought-about promoting its meals and refreshment arm to assist fund a failed £50bn bid for GlaxoSmithKline’s shopper well being division late final yr. However after a shareholder backlash, Unilever mentioned it was now not looking for large-scale mergers and acquisitions.
Governments globally are looking for to fight weight problems, which the World Well being Group says has virtually tripled since 1975, however some measures are contentious, particularly in relation to merchandise seen as “treats”.
On the time of the shareholder decision in January, Mark Lynch, associate at company finance boutique Oghma Companions, mentioned: “Opponents will see the pure logic being that firms like Lindt cease promoting chocolate or Diageo, alcoholic drinks — no shareholder goes to vote for that.”