Nutrition

Health & Nutrition

Improvement of health and well-being has always been part of Unilever’s corporate purpose. "By 2020, we will help more than a billion people take action to improve health and well-being." This has been the vision of Unilever in terms of taking concrete actions towards providing healthy and nutritional choices for our consumers.

Using globally recognised dietary guidelines, we continually work to improve the taste and nutritional quality of our products. By 2020, we will double the proportion of our portfolio that meets the highest nutritional standards, helping millions of people achieve a healthier diet. We fully commit to improve heart health, reduce salt levels, reduce saturated fat, remove trans fat, reduce sugar, reduce calories, and provide healthy eating information to people.

Our Nutrition Policy

Our vision is built on the foundation of our nutrition policy which we have had for years. We aim to help people everywhere achieve the nutritional balance needed for a vital and healthy life.  A formal nutrition policy that Unilever has developed explains how we intend to meet our goal. 

As a leader in the global food market, we are committed to marketing great tasting foods that will make the healthy choice an easy choice. We will help our consumers everywhere to achieve nutritional balance leading to a vital and healthy life. This nutrition policy is being brought to life through our continuous efforts to:
• Develop a deep understanding of consumers' nutrition and health needs and wants
• Know the nutritional composition and dietary role of our products and label our products in a consumer-friendly and meaningful way
• Optimise the nutritional composition of our products to meet consumer needs and wants
• Undertake and support scientific research to provide evidence for benefit claims for our products 
• Ensure responsible communication about product benefits to health care professionals and consumers
• Seek external partnerships to develop mutual understanding and agree common approaches in nutrition and health programmes

The Nutrition Enhancement Programme

The Nutrition Enhancement Programme is a clear example of our vision in action – to create a better future everyday. It started in 2003 as a way to improve the nutritional quality of our products and promote healthier food choices.

Unilever defined nutritional quality benchmarks for trans fat, saturated fat, sodium and sugars, based on international dietary guidelines and available food standards. The underlying principles and benchmarks have been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal [Nijman et al, Eur J Clin Nutr 2007] and have been subjected to scrutiny in several nutrition discussion groups.

An on-going worldwide assessment of our food and beverage products is in place to facilitate product optimisation and innovation growing the availability of healthier foods and beverages. Thus, it drives real improvements in the nutritional composition of, and communication about, our entire food and beverage portfolio.

Between 2005-2008, we assessed over 30,000 products and have removed over 30,000 tonnes of trans fat, 18,000 tonnes of saturated fat, over 3,500 tonnes of sodium (or 9,100 tonnes of salt) and 37,000 tonnes of sugar. The programme covers the total Unilever portfolio with products sold in retail and through outlets (out of home). What’s important is that these changes are being made without any compromises on the taste, texture or other quality aspects of our foods.

Key Partners

Unilever also partnered with the following key organisations to ensure sufficient impact.
• UN World Food Programme
o to feed hungry children and improve their nutrition
• FDI (Fédération dentaire internationale) World Dental Federation
o to improve oral health
• World Heart Federation
o to promote heart health
• Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with soap
o to promote good hygiene practice
• Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
o to co-create new approaches in food fortification to address malnutrition
• UN Global Compact
o to align business operations and strategies in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption

Acting responsibly

Millions of people around the world enjoy the foods and drinks we create. So the ingredients we use, the formulations, and the way we advertise and market our brands can potentially make a big impact on global health.

We aim to act responsibly and have a strong nutrition policy. We've also developed a carefully considered approach to health and nutrition which includes:

• encouraging a balanced diet with the right amount of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals
• developing a growing range of low fat, low sugar, low calorie alternatives, plus more 'active health' products such as pro.activ
• marketing responsibility our foods and beverages and helping to reduce over-consumption
• helping people understand the nutritional benefits of our products
• creating products that reflect the fact that people will only eat foods that they enjoy
• having sound specific evidence underpinning all our claims
• making significant contributions to researching the relationship on nutrition and health, such as the effects of good fats (unsaturated fats), fruits & vegetables and vitamins and minerals

Clear communication

We've also developed a set of marketing principles to ensure we're always 'honest, decent and truthful' in our communication – which include special principles on advertising to children.

As well as excluding anything that appears to condone over-consumption in our marketing, we also prohibit anything that undermines the promotion of healthy, balanced diets and lifestyles, or misrepresents snacks as meals. We will also make sure that any claims made in our marketing about any of our products are supported by scientific evidence.

Under our principles for marketing to children, we ensure our advertisements don't convey misleading messages, don't undermine parental influence, don't encourage pester power, don't suggest time or price pressure, don't encourage unhealthy dietary habits, and don't blur the boundary between promotion and content.

In addition, as well as supporting the development of international self-regulatory codes for all marketing and advertising, we recently agreed to voluntarily restrict all paid marketing communications (with the exception of packaging) directed primarily at children under the age of six years.

We believe that by putting these principles in place, we're not only doing the right thing, but we're being proactive through voluntary self-regulation – instead of simply reacting to external pressures.

Our Global Principles for Responsible Food and Beverage Marketing have been reviewed regularly since 2003 and updates published, the latest being in December 2010. See the related links to read more.