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Major Australian based food and beverage manufacturers have, for the first time, publicly made available company action plans which spell out in black and white how and when they will market a range of their products.
Australian Food and Grocery Council CEO Kate Carnell said that the commitment is inline with the Council’s recently announced Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative.
“Companies participating in this initiative have publicly committed to advertise to children under 12, only when it will further the goal of promoting healthy dietary choices and healthy lifestyles. Participants have also undertaken to not advertise food and beverage products to children under 12 in any media unless those products represent healthy dietary choices, consistent with established scientific or Australian government standards,” Ms Carnell said.
“Signatories to the scheme will now only advertise products in the context of promoting good dietary habits and physical activity.”
Ms Carnell has said that to date eight major multinational food and beverage companies have signed up to the scheme including: Nestle Australia Limited, Cereal Partners Worldwide, Kraft Food Australia/New Zealand, Cadbury Plc, George Weston Limited, Unilever Australia Limited, Coca Cola South Pacific, and PepsiCo Australia.
“The aim in developing the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative is to provide a framework for food and beverage companies to promote healthy dietary choices and lifestyles to Australian children,” she said.
“There is genuine community concern about specific marketing directed at children and our hope in initiating this scheme is to legitimately be able to point to our actions and say; yes industry is hearing the community’s concerns and this is what we are doing about it.”