Food industry responds to pressure

Food manufacturers in New Zealand are working to reformulate products with high salt, sugar and fat content.

Some examples recently highlighted by the Food Industry Group include:

• Goodman Fielder reduced the fat content of their flavoured milk range from 2% to 1.7%, which removed around 26,000kg of fat from the food supply in a year.
• Reformulation of Hubbard’s muesli range took out 32.8 tonnes of fat, 5.3 tonnes of saturated fat, 41.8 tonnes of sugar and 0.5 tonnes of sodium.
• There is now no added sugar in Anlene plain yoghurt and a 29% reduction of sugar in fruited Anlene yoghurts; added sugar has been reduced by 7.5% in Fresh’n’Fruity yoghurts, Anchor CalciYum dairy food and Anchor custard.
• A 68% reduction in saturated fat across the Nestlé 2-minute Noodle range and a change to using natural colours and flavours in this range.
• Since beginning their sodium reduction programme in 1997, sodium has been reduced in 12 major Kellogg’s brands by an average of 40%.

Source: Food Industry Group (www.fig.org.nz), July 2008