Yoghurt manufacturers are gearing up to slash added sugar levels and will meet with health chiefs next month to discuss imposing voluntary reduction targets.
The sector last year accused PHE of “demonising” yoghurt, after it placed the product in the same bracket as ice cream and dairy desserts in its Change4Life Sugar Swap campaign.
Major brands such as Müller, Yeo Valley and The Collective had reduced sugar in their yoghurts over the past 18 months, and manufacturers were now looking to “engage constructively” on sugar reduction, said PTF director general Andrew Kuyk.
Key manufacturers, alongside the PTF and Dairy UK, will meet with PHE on 1 November to discuss its sugar reformulation initiative - which aims to remove 20% of added sugars across nine food categories affecting children by 2020. It wants an initial 5% reduction by the end of 2017.
It was “very important” to have a constructive dialogue with the DH and its agencies, said Dairy UK CEO Judith Bryans.
The aim of the summit would be to explore options regarding sugar reduction, review action taken, and to establish what technical issues reformulation had met, added the PTF. It also noted the need to quiz PHE on its specific proposals, such as whether lactose (which is intrinsic to milk products) would be counted as sugar.
Yoghurt manufacturers recognised that “tackling obesity, and childhood obesity in particular, is a major challenge for society - and one in which the food industry clearly has a particular role to play”, said Kuyk.
But he warned reformulating products had to be done in ways that did “not distort competition or produce unintended consequences” such as reducing nutrient intake.
PHE said its sugar reduction targets would be published next March.
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