Good morning, everyone.
Food and Consumer Products of Canada welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the Standing Committee on Health's study on health promotion and disease prevention as it relates to healthy eating.
For those who don't know us, FCPC is the voice of Canada's leading food, beverage, and consumer product companies that manufacture or distribute the products that sustain Canadians and enhance their quality of life. FCPC and its member companies routinely work with governments and other stakeholders to develop effective solutions on public policy issues.
As we all know, a seminal report was released by the World Health Organization in 2004 entitled “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health”. It spells out the major risk factors for non-communicable diseases and lays out recommendations to all stakeholders on how to contribute to reducing NCDs in two pivotal areas of concern: unhealthy diets, and physical inactivity. The recommendations specific to the food industry are noted in my submission in table 1.
It is in the context of these recommendations from the WHO that I share with you the key activities in which FCPC food manufacturing member companies, through their international affiliations and at the national level, are engaged. They are activities that ultimately support Canadians in creating their own healthy eating regimes.
At the international level, global multinational companies are members of the International Food and Beverage Alliance. It collaborates with the WHO and other relevant stakeholders to address globally the health and well-being challenges identified in the global strategy.
IFBA member companies have made commitments related to product reformulation and innovation, providing useful contextual information for consumers on foods and beverages, strengthening voluntary measures on marketing and advertising, and promoting healthy lifestyles. Table 2 outlines these commitments.
The most recent annual progress report was published in March 2011, and it can be found on the IFBA website. It documents the significant progress that is being made.
At the national level, similar actions are being taken.
FCPC members have articulated their longstanding commitment to healthy active living through a voluntary statement that factors in the key recommendations made to the food industry in the global strategy.
The FCPC statement of commitment on healthy active living focuses on product choice, innovation, and selection, consumer education, responsible advertising and marketing practices, and promoting healthy active living in the workplace and community. The full commitment is outlined in table 3.
I will quickly walk through some initiatives that have already been done or are under way in support of this FCPC member commitment.
FCPC, representing its food manufacturing member companies, had an integral role in two very significant multi-stakeholder initiatives established to bring about beneficial changes to the food supply, namely the transfat task force and the sodium working group. The multi-stakeholder transfat task force recommendations were designed to effectively eliminate or reduce processed transfat in Canadian foods to the lowest level possible.
The last set of monitoring data collected to reflect the marketplace in 2008-09 found that 80% of the products in the marketplace were compliant with the task force recommendations. In a news release sent out at that time by the minister's office, Minister Aglukkaq acknowledged food industry's achievement, saying:
Our government is pleased to see that industry has reduced the level of transfat in many pre-packaged foods. This was achieved by finding healthier alternatives without increasing the levels of saturated fat.
The food industry was also represented on the sodium working group that developed the sodium reduction strategy for Canada. I was one of the members. In addition, FCPC member companies have worked with Health Canada on proposed voluntary sodium reduction targets for processed food products in support of the strategy's interim goal of shifting the dietary average intake of sodium to 2,300 milligrams per day.
The operating premise for the food industry in working on targets has always been threefold: changes must always factor in food safety; they must recognize the real functional and technical challenges associated with reducing sodium levels in some food categories; and they must take heed of the role of consumer acceptance. To that end, changes to the food supply must be in concert with awareness and education campaigns that target Canadians to inform them of what is happening to their food supply and why it should matter to them.
The attached figure 79 from a World Health Organization report gives context to the challenge before us. Thirty-three countries are listed. All have salt consumption patterns above the World Health Organization's recommended five grams per day, Canada included. You will note, however, that relative to most countries, our salt consumption is low. That is the good news. The bad news is that this graph illustrates that we are embarking on unchartered territory. Solutions to lowering salt levels in the diets of Canadians and in the Canadian food supply are not already out there for us to take advantage of. We will be leading the way.
While the sodium reduction strategy for Canada has not yet been fully implemented, it has not deterred food manufacturers from making sodium reduction in processed food products an ongoing priority. In fact, in a recent survey of members, 65 of the respondents reported that they were reformulating products in their product portfolios to reduce sodium levels, and 35% were introducing new products that have reduced sodium levels.
FCPC member companies also take a lead role in helping consumers make informed decisions. Since 2005, food manufacturers have provided nutrition facts tables on their processed food products using a standardized format. They list calories and nutrient breakdown for 13 key nutrients. The ingredients list tells consumers what the products contain. Additional information in the form of health claims, from nutrient content claims to disease risk reduction claims, in line with regulations, further provide the consumer with details that help them make informed purchasing decisions.
An initiative I'm particularly pleased to highlight is the groundbreaking, collaborative, and award-winning campaign called the nutrition facts education campaign, which was launched in October 2010. It is a collaboration between Health Canada and FCPC. The initiative is multi-faceted. It explains the percentage daily value to consumers through messaging on food packages, in stores, and in national media, including print, television, and online.
Building on the success of phase one, phase two was recently launched. Thirty-four major Canadian food companies are participating in this initiative. Because of the nature of the program, it provides a fantastic reach to Canadians.
The next commitment I'll speak to gets a lot of attention, and it is about responsible marketing and advertising practices as they relate to children. There is a broadcast code for advertising to children. Its purpose is to guide advertisers in developing messages directed at children 12 years and under. Across Canada, except for Quebec, advertisers follow the guidelines under this code. Quebec, as Bill Jeffery has noted, does not allow advertising to children.