Category Archives: Nestlé

Tax unhealthy foods to tackle obesity, say campaigners

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Health and children’s groups urge UK ministers to impose levies on products containing too much salt or sugar

Dozens of health and children’s groups have urged ministers to tackle obesity by imposing taxes on foods containing too much salt or sugar.

New levies based on the sugar tax on soft drinks would make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily by forcing food manufacturers to reformulate their products, they claim.

74% think food firms are not honest about the health impact of their products.

61% worry about the amount of sugar and saturated fat in what they eat.

Only 13% believe producers will make their food more nutritious without government intervention.

72% worry about high levels of processing used in food production.

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Top UK food firms urged to do more to cut ‘staggering’ emissions

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Food campaign Bite Back says 10 firms account for more carbon emissions globally than aviation industry

Britain’s biggest food and drink firms are doing too little to tackle the climate emergency and are producing “staggering” amounts of greenhouse gases, campaigners claim.

The 10 companies that manufacture more of the UK’s food than anyone else produce more carbon emissions between them than even the aviation industry, a report says.

Three of the firms increased their annual emissions in 2022 – Ferrero, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo.

Seven are on course to miss meeting emissions targets they have set themselves to achieve by 2050.

Only four have a verifiable commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 – Danone, Mars, Mondelēz and Nestlé.

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KitKat owner Nestlé faces vote forcing it to cut back on unhealthy products

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Company, which also makes Quality Street, says reducing sugar, salt and fats could harm ‘strategic freedom’

Nestlé faces a resolution at its AGM on Thursday that could force the world’s largest consumer goods company to cut back on high levels of salt, sugar and fats in its food and drinks.

The Swiss-headquartered multinational is urging investors to reject the proposal, arguing a move away from “indulgent products” could harm its “strategic freedom”.

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Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds

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Swiss food firm’s infant formula and cereal sold in global south ignore WHO anti-obesity guidelines for Europe, says Public Eye

Nestlé, the world’s largest consumer goods company, adds sugar and honey to infant milk and cereal products sold in many poorer countries, contrary to international guidelines aimed at preventing obesity and chronic diseases, a report has found.

Campaigners from Public Eye, a Swiss investigative organisation, sent samples of the Swiss multinational’s baby-food products sold in Asia, Africa and Latin America to a Belgian laboratory for testing.

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‘Brands to avoid’: Mars and Cadbury among chocolate firms criticised in ethics report

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Only 17 out of 82 companies investigated were found to use suppliers that paid cocoa farmers enough to live on

Leading chocolate brands have been criticised for having “inadequate” ethical standards in their cocoa supply chain in a report from Ethical Consumer. Only 17 out of 82 brands investigated by the consumer organisation were judged to be using chocolate from suppliers that ensured farmers were paid enough to live on.

As a result, there is a risk that Advent calendars, chocolate Santas and other Christmas treats will have been produced with child labour. About 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from west Africa, and about six in 10 cocoa-growing households in Ghana are estimated to use child labour, with four in 10 in Ivory Coast.

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EU firms accused of ‘abhorrent’ export of banned pesticides to Brazil

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BASF among firms selling chemicals to sugar industry despite links to human health risks

Pesticides banned in the EU because of their links to human health risks are being exported and used on farms in Brazil supplying Nestlé, an investigation has revealed.

Europe is home to some of the world’s biggest and most profitable chemical companies, including the Swiss-based Syngenta and the German multinationals BASF and Bayer.

This article was amended on 25 April 2023. Although fipronil and triflumuron have been banned in the EU they have not been identified as potential carcinogens.

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Revealed: group shaping US nutrition receives millions from big food industry

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Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a record of quid pro quos with a range of food giants, documents show

Newly released documents show an influential group that helps shape US food policy and steers consumers toward nutritional products has financial ties to the world’s largest processed food companies and has been controlled by former industry employees who have worked for companies like Monsanto.

The documents reveal the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a record of quid pro quos with a range of food giants, owns stock in ultra processed food companies and has received millions in contributions from producers of pop, candy, and processed foods linked to diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other health problems.

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Swiss police seize 500kg of cocaine at Nespresso factory

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Workers at plant in Romont alert authorities to mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans

Swiss police have seized more than 500kg of cocaine from a shipment of coffee beans delivered to a Nespresso plant.

Workers at the plant in Romont, in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg, alerted authorities to a mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans, police said.

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Undercover footage at French pig farm shows ‘abusive’ conditions

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The unit, which supplies the Herta brand, had been cleared by French state vets and claimed to be addressing concerns

French veterinary officials have been accused of publishing “falsely reassuring” inspection findings after undercover footage at a farm appeared to show pigs in conditions that continued to breach regulations following allegations of abuse in December.

The farm is a supplier for the Herta brand of frankfurter, part-owned by Nestlé, which is sold by most major UK supermarkets.

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Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé named top plastic polluters for third year in a row

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Companies accused of “zero progress” on reducing plastic waste, with Coca-Cola ranked No 1 for most littered products

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé have been accused of “zero progress” on reducing plastic waste, after being named the world’s top plastic polluters for the third year in a row.

Coca-Cola was ranked the world’s No 1 plastic polluter by Break Free From Plastic in its annual audit, after its beverage bottles were the most frequently found discarded on beaches, rivers, parks and other litter sites in 51 of 55 nations surveyed. Last year it was the most frequently littered bottle in 37 countries, out of 51 surveyed.

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Have a heart, KitKat, don’t break with Fairtrade

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Nestlé is big in York, but the city is fighting the brand’s decision to make life harder for African cocoa farmers

Here’s a quiz question: how many KitKats are produced in the Nestlé factory in York each year? A hundred million? Keep going. The plant makes a billion of the UK’s bestselling chocolate bars annually. That volume is one reason that the company’s shameful decision to end the brand’s Fairtrade certification will have such a devastating effect on cocoa farmers.

I visited some of the Fairtrade-certified cocoa farms in Ivory Coast last year. Seeing the difference that a measure of financial security can make to some of the poorest villages on earth is a lasting lesson in the mechanics of hope.

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Report reveals ‘massive plastic pollution footprint’ of drinks firms

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Report says plastic from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever products could cover 83 football pitches every day

Four global drinks giants are responsible for more than half a million tonnes of plastic pollution in six developing countries each year, enough to cover 83 football pitches every day, according to a report.

The NGO Tearfund has calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from the open burning of plastic bottles, sachets and cartons produced by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever in developing nations, where waste can be mismanaged because people do not have access to collections.

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Children as young as eight used to pick coffee beans for Starbucks

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Nespresso also named in TV exposé of labour scandal in Guatemala

High street coffee shop giant Starbucks has been caught up in a child labour row after an investigation revealed that children under 13 were working on farms in Guatemala that supply the chain with its beans.

Channel 4’s Dispatches filmed the children working 40-hour weeks in gruelling conditions, picking coffee for a daily wage little more than the price of a latte. The beans are also supplied to Nespresso, owned by Nestlé. Last week, actor George Clooney, the advertising face of Nespresso, praised the investigation and said he was saddened by its findings.

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The fight to stop Nestlé from taking America’s water to sell in plastic bottles

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Creek beds are bone dry and once-gushing springs are reduced to trickles as fights play out around the nation over control of nation’s freshwater supply

The network of clear streams comprising California’s Strawberry Creek run down the side of a steep, rocky mountain in a national forest two hours east of Los Angeles. Last year Nestlé siphoned 45m gallons of pristine spring water from the creek and bottled it under the Arrowhead Water label.

Though it’s on federal land, the Swiss bottled water giant paid the US Forest Service and state practically nothing, and it profited handsomely: Nestlé Waters’ 2018 worldwide sales exceeded $7.8bn.

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Nestlé plan to take 1.1m gallons of water a day from natural springs sparks outcry

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Opponents fighting to stop the project say the fragile river cannot sustain such a large draw

The crystal blue waters of Ginnie Springs have long been treasured among the string of pearls that line Florida’s picturesque Santa Fe River, a playground for water sports enthusiasts and an ecologically critical haven for the numerous species of turtles that nest on its banks.

Soon, however, it is feared there could be substantially less water flowing through, if a plan by the food and beverage giant Nestlé wins approval.

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