Evidence of meeting #42 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Carolyn Bennett
What was the standard that the companies were trying to reformulate to? Just less salt, less fat?
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
Yes, really, it was. We don't have anything like the heart smart guide. We don't have an overall position of what is healthy. We have something that's called the balanced plate, which looks at the proportion of carbohydrates and fruit and vegetables that you have in your overall diet, but on a product basis there's nothing that says this is what a healthy food is.
We were trying to reduce generally. The Food Standards Agency in the U.K. has some criteria set up for reducing salt, and we're following those, but nothing for other nutrients.
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Carolyn Bennett
Fine.
Scott Simms is here now, a Newfoundlander. He's a bit closer to you than Ottawa.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Yes, we're practically close to Iceland, Karen, but nonetheless still Canadian in who we are.
Speaking of which, I'm going to use several examples from my home province.
Type 2 diabetes is now being diagnosed at an alarming rate. Obesity in school-aged children, primarily between the ages of 12 and 16, also is at a very alarming rate.
My question is about what we have done recently with the Canadian government and the Newfoundland government as well. We're trying to do promotional schemes for children in schools for physical fitness. What we haven't done thoroughly yet, I think, is introduce mandatory diet restrictions in schools, and of course the mandatory exercise portion of it.
My question is, within the school systems where you are in the U.K., are there mandatory exercise programs or diet regulations within the school system? What are you doing? Do you see an alarming rate of type 2 diabetes as well?
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
Answering your last question first, yes, we do; it's the same problem. It's really driven by obesity in young children and their poor diets. That will drive type 2 diabetes, which is what is driving it in the older population as well. Obesity is the key thing to treat there.
You're quite right, for children there has to be an aspect of healthy balanced diet, but also physical activity, especially when you're looking at young children. You don't want to restrict their growth too much and the opportunity for nutrients, but you do want to make sure they get good, wholesome food.
In the U.K. there is physical activity as part of the school curriculum, so they will take part in some kind of physical activity. That's really where we're supporting schools in some of our activities, by encouraging them to do something and make it fun and give them lesson plans that are rounded. It's not just about going out and playing a game of football; it's actually about understanding why they need to take physical activities. So it's not just about doing it, but understanding why, so that they do it out of the school environment as well.
In terms of dietary guidelines for school meals, we have had mandatory guidelines in Scotland. They came in a couple of years ago. In England and Wales, they're just coming in. They came in at the beginning of the year. They're just rolling through. They talk about trying to balance children's diets, probably over about a month. It's not on a day-today basis; it's looking, over a month, at whether they are getting enough of the right nutrients and the positive things they need—some of the vitamins and minerals for growth. But it's also to make sure they're not getting too much salt, sugar, and fat, and therefore it's about having healthy foods and understanding why they should be having healthy foods as well.
It's all part of the curriculum. It's a whole school approach, which definitely works the best, according to research: they talk about it in lessons, it's what they eat when they stop for lunch, and it's what they do when they get home.
Bloc
Christiane Gagnon Bloc Québec, QC
Thank you for telling us about the programs you are implementing.
If I understood you correctly, nutritional labelling is left to the discretion of the manufacturer. Who monitors that information? Who ensures the information is correct?
You try to reduce the amount of bad nutrients in foods. But since you are a private business, your targets are probably lower than those of a government department that tries to control the proportion of nutrients in food for the general population.
The reduction of a given ingredient in a product could alter its taste. Could this make some nutrients less attractive for consumers who are used to the taste of certain foods?
Thank you.
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
In terms of who controls the information, we all have a duty of care to our consumers, and while we are a private company, we're clearly there in the public domain. In the United Kingdom we have local authorities who enforce the labelling legislation.
There is a lot of legislation related to labelling, and most of it is at the European level and has cascaded down to the national member states. But the principle of it is that we have a duty not to mislead, and we shouldn't be misleading the consumer in how we describe the food, how we put a picture on the label, or how we put nutrition information or any kind of information on our products.
So we have principles of due diligence that the enforcement authorities will check. They will come and talk to us about what processes we've put in place, the testing, the checking of our product specifications, and they will talk to us about our processes, but they will also spot-check. They will take the products off the shelf, they will take them away, and the public analyst will analyze them. If they believe there to be any anomalies, they will come back to us and talk to us about it.
Certainly, there may be anomalies because there is just natural variation, and we can talk about that. Some may be because for some reason, yes, there was an error on the label when it was printed, or an example like that.
So we are very much under public scrutiny in terms of enforcement agencies with regard to any piece of information that we put onto a label, and we're very careful to make sure that we get that accurately.
In terms of where we reduce the quantities of certain nutrients, whether we're working with different objectives to those of the authorities--in the U.K. that would be the Food Standards Agency--we don't work against them. There is no purpose to that. We all actually have the fundamental principles of trying to encourage consumers to eat a healthier diet. It's not in our interest if our customers are dying young. We'd like to keep them. We'd like to keep their loyalty. We want to be seen as members of the local community. We talk to the Food Standards Agency on a regular basis about their research and about what they think the guidelines should be.
Inevitably, sometimes the industry moves faster than the government can, because it has to take a whole range of things into consideration; therefore, in the U.K., the industry--the retailers and the manufacturers--have developed guidelines on the amounts. And whilst the government is using them to some extent, they're not government-based figures. They are a guide that helps everyone move in the right direction, and the government is supportive of them even if its name is not on them.
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
We are all working towards the same objective.
Another question is what do we do about making sure that we still get quality and good-tasting food by reducing salt and sugar. We do it carefully. In some foods you have to take it down gently, because it's going to make a big difference. In others, we're quite surprised that some foods actually taste an awful lot better if you've taken a lot of the salt and the sugar out. You actually get to taste the ingredients, rather than the other things that we've put in.
We work carefully. We have regular taste panels, so if it doesn't taste good, it doesn't go on our shelves.
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Carolyn Bennett
Thanks very much.
My mother used to put HP Sauce on everything.
Laurie, go ahead.
February 26th, 2007 / 10:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thanks again, Ms. Tonks.
I have a number of short questions that hopefully will get short answers.
It sounds like industry is leading government in the U.K. Is that a fair statement?
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
Yes, I think in some aspects, in terms of the things that we need to drive. You were talking about the heart smart guide that you have in Canada. We don't have anything like that in the U.K.; therefore, we're having to find our own position so that we have consistency across the industry. We don't have that from government.
Government is driving on certain things, like salt. They've set the targets, and we've worked with them to do that.
So I think it depends on where you're looking at it.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So you're pretty much hand in hand with government. Is what you're doing in the U.K. going to become an EU standard, or is that sort of thing contemplated across the EU?
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
The labelling in Europe is being reviewed at present. There is some debate about whether they should include front-pack labelling in part of the legislation. It's at fairly early stages at the moment. We haven't even seen the draft proposal for the legislation, but it is likely there will be front-pack labelling.
There are two competing schemes at the moment, unfortunately. Our research shows that our front-pack labelling worked for our customers. Others have shown that using more of a traffic light scheme, where you label each nutrient red, amber, or green, may give more immediate information for consumers. We think there are some wrinkles in it that need working out, and it will be interesting to see which way Europe goes.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I'm going to suggest you're probably a fan of voluntary versus regulatory measures.
How easy was it to get companies like Coca-Cola to go along? Clearly, on the sugar side, they're probably not going to do very well with labelling.
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
I think it was because we all support providing information for consumers. By doing it on a voluntary basis and a self-regulated basis, you then have the flexibility. For example, the labels are too small, and by putting an extra label on you may need more packaging, which we don't want, or extra costs. Then we might leave some information off. If it were regulated, we'd have to put it on come what may, and at the end of the day, it may not be the best thing for the consumer.
For us, voluntary is more flexible, but it needs to have certain standards within it. I'm pleased that the companies that are using the same scheme are using all the same standards so that we don't confuse consumers further.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Finally, are you happy with the progress you've made? Looking at your successes and failures, is there one thing you'd do differently now if you could go back and do it again?
Chief Nutritionist, Tesco PLC
That's a tough question.
I think I'd be happier with our success if we could get a better position on what a healthy diet is and where people need to be heading, and also, an overall educational campaign, perhaps driven by the government that all of industry could get involved in, not just the big guys like Coca-Cola and Kraft and Kellogg's, but also the small manufacturers. In the U.K. there's very much a drive for locally produced food and the small producer, and when we encourage them and the local farmers and whatever to get behind some of these health initiatives, it really needs to be a government scheme. I'd be happier if there were an overall position on where we were going with a healthy diet. Something like the heart smart guide, that we could all link into, would be a much more positive thing.
If I could go back and do something different, I'd probably do front-pack labelling a lot sooner. We should have done it sooner and just got on with it and tried to stem the tide of increasing obesity, especially in children, a lot sooner. Maybe we should have acted sooner, but I don't think it's too late.