Posted on 10/15/2012 11:59:29 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
ORBE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Nestle SA and General Mills Inc will cut sugar and salt in the children's breakfast cereals they jointly market outside North America, the latest attempt by major food companies to respond to health concerns.
The two have been in a joint venture since 1990 to sell Nestle-brand cereals such as Cheerios in more than 140 countries outside the United States and Canada, markets which account for about half total global cereal sales of some $25 billion.
They say they will reformulate 20 cereal brands popular with children and teenagers by 2015, boosting wholegrains and calcium and aiming for average reductions of 24 percent in sugar and 12 percent in sodium.
The reformulation will affect about 5.3 billion portions of cereals sold each year.
The 50/50 joint venture called Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW) is the second-biggest breakfast cereal producer after Kellogg Co but is Europe's leading manufacturer of children's cereal. It had sales of 1.9 billion Swiss francs ($2 billion) in 2011.
CPW Chief Executive Jeffrey Harmening said the plan builds on efforts started in 2003 to improve the nutritional profile of cereals. The group has cut almost 900 metric tons of salt and more than 9,000 metric tons of sugar from its recipes since then.
"A certain number of moms don't want their kids to have as much sugar as they do right now, so that is a barrier for some to purchasing breakfast cereal," Harmening told Reuters at CPW's new global innovation centre in the Swiss town of Orbe.
The move comes as food and beverage companies seek to preempt tougher regulation due to the global obesity epidemic by offering healthier products or smaller portions.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Nestlé cuts profit forecast
I’m looking forward to that headline, so that I can laugh and laugh and laugh...
I wasn't aware obesity was now a GLOBAL problem. I guess that means only a global solution will do. Call in the UN Calvary to the rescue!
I guess I'll have to disregard all those pictures of starving kids in Africa and under/malnurished kids in Europe, NKorea, and SE Asia.
Let them hang themselves. Hershey will clean up.
I wasn't aware obesity was now a GLOBAL problem. I guess that means only a global solution will do. Call in the UN Calvary to the rescue!
I guess I'll have to disregard all those pictures of starving kids in Africa and under/malnurished kids in Europe, NKorea, and SE Asia.
New, from Nestle and General Mills: BLAND (The HEALTHY Kids Cereal!)*
Nanny State PING!
*30 percent less salt, 50 percent less sugar; 80 percent less taste!
Step 1: Loudly broadcast that they are sugar and salt in their cereals bowing at the alter of Obama and the food police.
Step 2: Nestle cereal sales tank.
Step 3: Nestle stock share price tanks.
Step 4: Nestle quietly restores all salt and sugar content and quietly boosts content in certain cereals.
Step 5: Sales slowly recover.
Step 6: Nestle stock price slowly recovers.
Step 7: Years later, Nestle executives disregard consumers again and look to satiate the politically correct beast in another way, they fail, and then wonder what happened. The company again loses billions.
Another Michelle 0bama victory for ‘CHANGE’. This is a COST-CUTTING MEASURE disguised as ‘more healthy food’ to please Michelle but irk the customer as their prices won’t change.
I remember reading years ago that there was more salt in a 1-ounce serving of Cheerios than a 1 ounce serving of potato chips. That set my BS meter off so the next time I was in the store I checked it out for myself. I grabbed the first bag of potato chips I saw, looked up the sodium content then checked out the Cheerios. Derned if it wasn’t more. So they could probably cut some salt out without affecting the taste too much.
Nestle to cut cereal in cerieal box.
Salt? Who eats salty cereals? The Eskimos?
Let Nestle follow in the footsteps and role model of Hydrox.
I still say the body tells you when you need salt and when you need sugar....just like it tells you when need fluids or food.
choice is good. its hard enough finding food without added
sugar/corn sweetener/salt. i may not live forever but at least i’ll be a good looking corpse and not look like a denizen of walmart.
Meh - 90% of breakfast cereals barely qualify as “food” anyway.
Good thing I quit cereal years ago and replaced it with good ole Quaker Oatmeal. I work out in the very early AM before work and after an exhausting workout there is absolutely no better source of quick enery than oatmeal.
Fixed it for you...
Step 1: Loudly broadcast that they are sugar and salt in their cereals bowing at the alter of Obama and the food police.
Step 2: Nestle cereal sales tank.
Step 3: Nestle stock share price tanks.
Step 4: Nestle turns to US Government for bailout
Step 5: Nestle continues plan for producing gross cereal
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