In London today, the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) gathered with food companies and investors to announce a major step forward in promoting healthier food portfolios. The coalition, comprised of dozens of prominent businesses and financial backers, has committed to adopting common standards to measure the nutritional quality of products sold by major corporations. The announcement follows a year of extensive research and consultation involving over 80 experts from the investment community, food industry, and academia.
The initiative comes at a time when poor diets are contributing to an alarming rise in global health problems. It is estimated that one in five deaths worldwide is linked to unhealthy eating habits, underlining the urgency for food companies to address the nutritional quality of their offerings. As the hidden costs of poor nutrition mount, there is increasing pressure for corporate accountability, with investors and regulators demanding clearer, standardised ways to measure and track progress in the sector.
ATNI’s Executive Director, Greg Garrett, emphasised the importance of this shift towards transparency: “We urge all food and beverage manufacturers and retailers to benchmark their product portfolios against at least one of the three selected NPMs [Health Star Rating (HSR), Nutri-Score, and/or the UK NPM] and to utilise the proposed ATNI reporting guidelines to enable investors to better gauge and compare the healthiness of portfolios and percentage of sales from healthier products. This is an important first step towards healthier food environments and improved access to healthier foods for all.”
A Patchwork of Nutrition Standards
Currently, the food industry relies on a range of nutrient profiling models (NPMs) to assess the healthiness of food products, but this patchwork approach has led to confusion and inconsistency. There are reportedly over 400 different NPMs in use around the world, creating significant challenges for both investors and regulators seeking to compare companies’ progress on nutrition goals. Without standardised measures, it has been difficult to assess how corporations are working towards offering healthier food options to consumers.
ATNI’s new initiative, funded by the Pictet Foundation, aims to streamline this process. Beginning in June 2023, the organisation launched a research series to drive greater harmonisation in how nutrition performance is measured. Using a Delphi process—a structured method that gathers expert opinion—ATNI consulted 86 experts from 14 countries, including representatives from the food industry, investors, academia, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The consultation process resulted in the identification of three key NPMs that ATNI and its partners believe should serve as the basis for future reporting: the Health Star Rating (HSR), Nutri-Score, and the UK NPM. These models have already been endorsed by governments in several regions and provide clear, accessible metrics for assessing the healthiness of food products.
A Unified Approach for Greater Transparency
ATNI is now calling on all food manufacturers and retailers to adopt at least one of these three models in their reporting. This move, according to the coalition, will enable investors to better understand the nutritional quality of food products, making it easier to compare portfolios across companies and assess the proportion of healthier products sold.
“Moving forward, we want to see all companies do this and to have governments regulate corporate reporting on the healthiness of product portfolios,” Garrett added.
The hope is that these reporting guidelines will help accelerate the food industry’s transition to offering more nutritious products. By providing a clear framework, ATNI believes it will be easier to hold companies accountable for their commitments to public health.
The Role of Investors in Driving Change
Investors have played a key role in pushing for these changes. As public awareness of the links between diet and health grows, many investors are increasingly concerned about the financial risks associated with poor nutrition. Health-related issues, from obesity to malnutrition, are not only putting strain on healthcare systems worldwide but also affecting the long-term viability of the food industry.
Investors are particularly interested in understanding how companies are shifting their product portfolios to align with global health goals, and the new NPMs provide a standardised way to track this progress. In addition to improving transparency, ATNI’s reporting guidelines will help investors identify companies that are leading the way in providing healthier food options.
A Global Effort to Tackle Poor Nutrition
The initiative’s international scope reflects the global nature of the problem. Poor nutrition is a leading contributor to non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers, which together account for a large proportion of premature deaths worldwide. Governments and health organisations have long urged the food industry to do more to address these issues by offering healthier products and clearer labelling, but progress has been slow.
ATNI’s efforts, supported by the Pictet Foundation, are seen as a critical step in accelerating this shift. The organisation is now urging governments to go further by introducing regulations that would require companies to report on the nutritional quality of their products, using the standardised models identified through its research.
In the meantime, the coalition of food companies and investors is moving forward with its commitment to adopting these common standards. By using the HSR, Nutri-Score, or UK NPM to assess their products, companies will be able to provide more consistent, reliable information to consumers and investors alike.
The collaboration between ATNI and key players in the food industry marks a major step towards creating a healthier global food system. With one in five deaths linked to poor diet, the stakes have never been higher.
