Private sector

In addition to governments, food companies are the other major actors who need to be included within accountability systems to improve the healthiness of food environments. Food companies can contribute to efforts to improve the healthiness of food environments for non-communicable disease prevention by implementing policies and making commitments related to obesity prevention and population nutrition.

Indicator	Result	What was measured?	Source
Policies and commitments Food & non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers
Median overall score of the commitments related to nutrition and obesity prevention of major packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers. Median score for:	47 / 100	Assessment of the comprehensiveness, specificity, and transparency of the nutrition and obesity related commitments of 17 largest packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers operating in New Zealand, using BIA-Obesity tools developed by INFORMAS (2017).	Kasture et al. (2019)
Corporate strategy	63 / 100
Product reformulation	37 / 100
Product labelling	57 / 100
Product and brand promotion	35 / 100
Relationships with other organisations	44 / 100
Supermarkets
Median overall score of the commitments related to nutrition and obesity prevention. Median score for:	44 / 100	Assessment of the comprehensiveness, specificity, and transparency of the nutrition and obesity related commitments of the 2 largest supermarkets operating in New Zealand, using BIA-Obesity tools developed by INFORMAS (2017).	Kasture et al. (2019)
Corporate strategy	70 / 100
Product reformulation	61 / 100
Product labelling	59 / 100
Product and brand promotion	36 / 100
Relationships with other organisations	59 / 100
Fast-food outlets
Median overall score of the commitments related to nutrition and obesity prevention of major fast-food outlets. Median score for:	9 / 100	Assessment of the comprehensiveness, specificity, and transparency of the nutrition and obesity related commitments of the 6 largest fast-food outlets operating in New Zealand, using BIA-Obesity tools developed by INFORMAS (2017).	Kasture et al. (2019)
Corporate strategy	25 / 100
Product reformulation	8 / 100
Product labelling	36 / 100
Product and brand promotion	1 / 100
Relationships with other organisations	19 / 100
Product healthiness Average Health Star Rating** of product portfolio
HSR > 3.5 stars		The packaged food supply in New Zealand supermarkets (2018).	Mackay et al. (2021)
Sanitarium McCain Foods Sealord	4.1 3.9 3.8
HSR 2.5 – 3.5 stars		The packaged food supply in New Zealand supermarkets (2018).	Mackay et al. (2021)
George Weston Foods Heinz Wattie’s Kellogg’s Foodstuffs (brand) Woolworths (brand) Goodman Fielder Fonterra Dairyworks The Better Drinks Co. Frucor Suntory Nestlé NZ	3.4 3.3 3.1 3.0 3.0 2.9 2.8 2.7 2.7 2.6 2.5
HSR < 2.5 stars		The packaged food supply in New Zealand supermarkets (2018).	Mackay et al. (2021)
Unilever NZ Arnott’s Mars Bluebird Foods Griffin’s Foods Coca-Cola Hellers Mondelēz	2.4 2.2 2.2 1.9 1.9 1.8 1.7 1.0

*Green = ‘promotes health’; Orange = ‘needs improvement to promote health’; Red = ‘unhealthy’. For criteria, refer to the Indicator Assessment Criteria at the bottom of the page.

** The Health Star Rating is a trans-Tasman voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme, which gives packaged food and beverage products a rating from 0.5 to 5 stars based on the products nutrients, ingredients, and energy. Any Health Star Ratings that were not displayed at the time of analysis were calculated using the HSR algorithm and nutritional information from Nutritrack.

Key Findings

New Zealand is predominantly relying on voluntary actions by the food industry to improve food environments.

Currently, food industry performance in relation to nutrition-related policies and commitments is varied, but low overall.

Key Recommendations

[BIA 2021 Recommendations]

For more information

How healthy are Aotearoa New Zealand’s food environments? 2021 Full Report

BIA-Obesity Report 2021 [TBA].

Articles

Kasture A, Vandevijvere S, Robinson E, Sacks G, Swinburn B. Benchmarking the commitments related to population nutrition and obesity prevention of major food companies in New Zealand. Int J Public Heal. 2019 Nov 22;64(8):1147-1157. doi: 10.1007/s00038-019-01272-7.

Mackay S, Eyles H, Gontijo de Castro, Young L, Ni Mhurchu C, Swinburn B. Which companies dominate the packages food supply of New Zealand and how healthy are their products? PLoS ONE. 2021 Jan 16;16(1): e0245225.

Indicator Assessment Criteria
Metric
Median score for obesity and nutrition-related policies and major commitments	≥ 80	40 – 79	< 40
Average Health Star Rating of product portfolio	> 3.5 stars	2.5 – 3.5 stars	< 2.5 stars