From Unilever To PepsiCo: Packaged Food Makers Sell Products With Low Health Ratings In India, Says Report

Global packaged food giants like Unilever, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Kellanova, Nestle, Lotte and Mars are still promoting less healthy products across markets, including in India, according to the fifth edition of the Global Access to Nutrition Index 2024.

The independent index — published by the Access to Nutrition Initiative, a global nonprofit organisation — revealed that the products sold by the multinationals in India scored between 0.6 and 3.1, failing to meet the healthiness threshold. According to the index, products are rated from 1 to 5 points on the health star rating system, with scores above 3.5 considered healthier.

It highlighted significant discrepancies in health star ratings. In low-income countries, the average score for food companies' products was 1.8 compared to 2.3 in high-income countries, according to the report. This is the first index to separate scores by income level.

When applying sales-weighting, which contributed 30% to the overall global index ranking, the companies reached a mean of 2.3 stars out of 5. In the Indian market, companies like PepsiCo and Mondelez, known for their indulgent product portfolios, scored lower than their global averages

"The rising use of weight loss medications has started to disrupt the packaged foods sector in high-income countries, creating pressure on food companies to look for new product lines and markets," the ATNi report stated. "Many multinationals are also increasingly deriving more revenue from low and middle-income countries than from high-income countries."

ATNi categorises Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Vietnam as low and lower middle-income countries.

The ATNi index assessed 30 major food and beverage companies this year based on parameters like nutrient profile models, portfolio improvement, responsible labelling, and marketing.

Companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, and PepsiCo derive just about 11–38% of global sales from healthier products, which is far from ATNi's target of achieving 50% of sales from healthier products by 2030. In terms of the products, only 16% of Unilever's portfolio meets the healthier threshold, while that of PepsiCo's is 28%, Nestle's is 25%, and Mondelez's is 10%.

Products sold by these 30 companies in high-income markets contained more micronutrients compared to those sold in lower-middle income markets, noted ATNi.

Meanwhile, a few companies have adopted government-endorsed nutrient profile models, although this applies only in certain geographies. For instance, PepsiCo, which sells Lay's chips and Tropicana juice, has set a target to increase the sales of products meeting a nutri-score of A/B. However, this initiative applies only to its snack portfolio in the European Union.

According to Unilever's website, the company states that it has been continuously improving the nutritional quality of its products and has set a target to increase the amount of positive ingredients. They use their own nutrient profile models—Unilever's Science-based Nutrition Criteria—as the primary reporting metric for portfolio healthiness.

It argues that "there is currently no globally aligned approach to setting a harmonised 'healthiness' score for food and beverage products". It has called on industry stakeholders to work together to create an industry-wide approach for measuring 'healthiness' of portfolios that "every company in the food industry can use to incentivise reformulation at scale and enhance the positive impact on public health.".

According to ATNI, the companies' own definitions of 'healthier' may have value for the company, acting as a key performance indicator to track improvement over time. "However, given the lack of comparability and external validation of such models or approaches (relative to using international models), this approach has lesser value for external stakeholders, especially investors and policymakers.".

"To date, voluntary efforts by companies have been insufficient to ensure widespread and strong nutrition-related performance," according to the report. "The policymakers and governments should introduce policies around mandatory front-of-pack labelling, making products high in fat, sugar, or salt more expensive, making healthier foods more affordable, and marketing restrictions."

India's food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, is working to enforce the declaration of nutritional information such as total sugars, salt, and saturated fat on packaged food companies. However, experts say that the country requires a clearer definition of what constitutes unhealthy versus healthy food. Without this distinction, junk food could potentially lead to the next significant health crisis.