Unilever will publish nutrition scores for its food portfolio, which includes Ben & Jerry’s and Magnum ice creams, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr bouillon cubes, against external health metrics and set new targets following investor pressure on obesity.
The commitment to assess performance against six measures, including the UK’s definition of “high fat, sugar and salt” and Europe’s Nutri-Score, comes after institutional investors including the assets of €150 billion Candriam, will file a shareholder resolution on the issue.
Unilever, which is the world’s largest ice cream maker, will set new targets for October and said it would be the first global food group to publish nutritional performance in this way. It will assess performance globally and for 16 key markets by product volume and revenue.
Its biggest rival, Nestlé, has been working on new nutrition standards. An internal report seen by the Financial Times last year said more than 60 percent of the Swiss group’s main food and beverage products do not meet a “recognized definition of health.”
Catherine Howarth, CEO of ShareAction, a shareholder group that pushed Unilever to make the changes, said: “The promised transparency sets a new standard for the industry. We hope and hope that others will follow.”
Investors with $215 billion in assets, including Candriam, US health care provider Trinity Health and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund filed a resolution in January ahead of Unilever’s annual general meeting in May, urging the FTSE 100 consumer goods group to set ambitious targets to sell healthier products. foods
Ignacio Vazquez, senior manager of healthy markets at ShareAction, said at the time that despite Unilever’s strong sustainability record, “the health profile of the food and beverage products it sells remains a blind spot.”
“This is surprising, as the rapid growth of regulation means that health is a [environmental, social and governance] problem that presents a real financial threat to your business.”
The resolution has now been withdrawn and Unilever said it would work closely with ShareAction and its Healthy Markets Initiative. Hanneke Faber, president of Unilever’s food division, said the changes “will set a new benchmark for nutritional transparency in our industry and accelerate our positive impact on public health.”
Unilever’s existing targets for its food and soft drinks division, which has annual revenues of €20bn, include doubling the number of products that provide “positive nutrition” by 2025.
The company had considered selling its food and beverage division to help finance a £50bn bid failed for GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer health division late last year. But after a shareholder backlash, Unilever said it was no longer pursuing large-scale mergers and acquisitions.
Governments around the world are trying to combat obesity, which according to the World Health Organization has almost tripled since 1975, but some measures are controversial, especially in relation to products seen as “candy”.
At the time of the shareholder resolution in January, Mark Lynch, a partner at corporate finance boutique Oghma Partners, said: “Opponents will see that the natural logic is for companies like Lindt to stop selling chocolate or Diageo, alcoholic beverages; no shareholder will vote. For that.”
