Their moves don’t exactly seem altruistic, but over in Great Britain, Cadbury and Masterfoods UK will add some health information to the food labels on their confectionery products, according to FoodNavigator.com/Europe.
More specifically, as reporter Peter Stiff describes it, their efforts to add healthy labeling are simply "a bid to stave off anti-obesity legislation on labelling."
Stiff continues:
"The new labelling forms part of the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Association’s (BCCCA) ‘Be Treatwise’ campaign.
"The National Consumer Council (NCC) in the UK has dismissed the industry’s decision to introduce the guidance as `a cynical move’ that is …confusing to consumers [and which] seeks] to pre-empt the Food Standards Agency’s well researched front of pack signposting, which is under public consultation.”
The `Be Treatwise’ campaign launched a little over a week ago, is intended to educate consumers to eat sweets responsibly as part of a balanced diet.
But I’m wondering — why encourage people to even eat sweets at all (responsibly or not) when you have a rapidly growing population — and I don’t mean sprouting up.
Let’s face it — these are just huge companies that need to show increased and steady sales. So they simply seek to make it OK to eat sweets — they justify eating sweets by making it reasonable if you do so "responsibily"? Do they define what "responsibly" means? Are most people even able to act "responsibly" whether or not they know what it means?
The labeling move comes while the UK’s Department of Health most recent stats indicate that 59 percent of women in England and 66 percent of men were overweight or obese in 2003.
Of course, as those of us who watch the industry know, whenever you have a proliferation of processed crap, you inevitably have an obesity problem.