More than 1.9 billion adults are overweight – that is a staggering 39% of the world’s population. And 13% of the world is classified as obese. New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD. This epidemic must be addressed, but there is no single, easy answer. We are dedicated to playing our part in tackling the obesity epidemic and commit to the New Zealand Government’s Healthy Kids Industry Pledge.
We continually work to improve nutrition - it is a critical part of our vision to make a positive social impact through our business, whilst reducing our environmental impact. We have comprehensive policies and ambitious targets under the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) and are committed to help more than a billion people take action to improve their health and wellbeing by 2020.
Our Sustainable Nutrition strategy is our roadmap for action on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with consumers at its core. We are delivering even better products so that we can have a bigger, positive impact on heart health, obesity and undernutrition, and we follow a responsible labelling and marketing policy.
Many nutrition priorities are captured within our Highest Nutrition Standards (HNS), and go beyond this in New Zealand. Our nutrition priorities include:
- Clear nutrition via our USLP labelling commitment. As a part of this we are committed to implementing the voluntary government Health Star Rating initiative
- Responsible food and beverage marketing, including marketing to children. NZ Unilever abides by the Advertising Standards Authority Children and Young People’s Advertising Code, as well as by Unilever’s Global Principles of responsible marketing.
- Sodium reduction in our products via our HNS
- Sugar reduction in our products via our HNS
- Saturated fat reduction in our products via our HNS
- Reduction of energy in appropriate products, via our HNS, which can assist with portion control
- Continue to achieve 100% compliance, so that all our products do not contain trans-fat originating from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil*
- Ensure our HNS nutrient profiling is scientifically sound, all-inclusive of our products, and encourages reformulation
Ensure our HNS nutrient profiling is scientifically sound, all-inclusive of our products, and encourages reformulation
For further information on our health and wellbeing commitments and progress visit:
Improving Nutrition
*We have published our definition and approach to removing trans fats from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. See: Melnikov S & Zevenbergen H. "Implementation of removing trans fatty acids originating from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils". New Food 2012; 5: 44-46. This approach focuses on main ingredients in our recipes and does not include traces of trans fats from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil that may be found in some flavours or emulsifiers.