Search results: Coca Cola

A notice from FoodNavigator-Asia got my attention: Coca-Cola is partnering with the New Zealand dairy company Fonterra to produce “Nutriboost” products for Southeast Asia.

What are these?

• Nutriboost Kids is targeted at children above three years of age, with each of its products being fortified with different occasion-based vitamins and minerals:…Morning Growth (fortified with vitamins for growth), Playtime (designed for stronger immunity) and Good Night (fortified with DHA for brain development).
• Nutriboost To-Go is an energy-providing breakfast range enriched with oats and fibre.
• Nutriboost Beauty is fortified with fitness and beauty-associated minerals like collagen and zinc.

Given the lack of evidence for significant nutritional benefits of any of these things, and the high prevalence of lactose intolerance among Asian populations, why this partnership?

• Vietnam is the third largest dairy market in the ASEAN region.
• To grow [sales] to 40 million or 50 million cases within the next five years.
• Coca-Cola’s strategy is to evolve away from drinks with high sugar content.

The article doesn’t say how much money is going into this partnership, but both companies must think there is a big market for such products.

I’m not a fan of “functional” foods, alas.

Real food, anyone?

This is BeverageDaily.com’s monthly beer special, from the industry’s point of view.  If you don’t think of beer as an industry, think again.

• Flexible, diverse breweries are the way forward for small craft: The craft beer industry is navigating a more mature growth pattern in 2019: a theme that was explored at the 36th annual Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Denver… Read
• Outdoor clothing brand Patagonia sues Anheuser-Busch over ‘copycat’ beer brand: Outdoor clothing and gear brand Patagonia, Inc has filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch: accusing the beer giant of ‘attempting to copy Patagonia’s famous brand identity’ with its Patagonia beer brand… Read
• Constellation Brands: ‘2019 sees a monumental shift for Corona as it expands into a more comprehensive beer family’:  Constellation Brands is expanding its core Corona brand with new launches that appeal to a wider range of consumers and occasions – including the nationwide US rollout this month of premium alcohol-spiked refresher Corona Refresca… Read
• ‘Probably not the best beer in the world – so we’ve changed it’: Carlsberg challenges drinkers to reappraise its beer: Carlsberg is relaunching in the UK with a rebrewed lager, accompanied by ‘its most honest consumer campaign ever’. Will its relaunch be able to shake up the mainstream – and can it encourage a new generation of drinkers to re-appraise its beer?.. Read
• US craft beer has settled into a ‘more mature growth pattern’: The Brewers Association (BA) released its annual growth report this week: showing craft brewery volumes have increased by 4% and now account for 13.2% of the US beer market… Read
• Samuel Adams Summer Ale gets first recipe change in 23 years: US brewer Samuel ‘Sam’ Adams has updated the formula of its seasonal favorite Summer Ale with ‘lighter and brighter’ flavors… Read
• New Zealand boasts more breweries per capita than the US, UK and Australia:  New Zealand now has more breweries on a per capita basis than the US, UK and Australia: creating a $2.3bn ($1.6bn USD) industry. And there’s still plenty of room to grow: “Highlighting our home-grown ingredients and locally produced products will go a long way to boost the overall New Zealand beer brand,” says The Brewers Association of New Zealand… Read
• Reshaping beer: Better labels, advanced branding tech and new bottle formats: Beer packaging has been a ‘sea of sameness’ for decades, according to glass container manufacturer O-I. Traditional amber glass bottles and aluminum cans covered in paper labels has been the norm, but the time may be ripe for a major change… Read
• Craft beer trends: ‘Huge growth’ in lower alcohol brews and beer in cans: The UK craft beer market is seeing ‘huge growth’ in cans and no & low alcohol beers, according to online craft beer distribution marketplace EeBriaTrade… Read
• Guinness stops using plastic packaging with its beer: Diageo’s beer brands will replace plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap with recyclable and biodegradable cardboard: the equivalent of removing 40 million plastic bottles from the world… Read
• Zero hero? Heineken wants no-alcohol beer to rival Coke in Singapore following Europe sales boom: Heineken’s new zero-alcohol beer Heineken 0.0 is the brand’s pioneering foray into the Low and No Alcohol (LNA) category in Singapore, with the firm targeting availability in locations such as salad bars, gyms and offices as it seeks to rival soft drinks giants such as Coca-Cola… Read
• Suntory Beer installs 3D printing technology to print images on beer: Suntory Beer has partnered with Ripples to roll out 700 Ripple Maker PM devices to print 3D images, emojis and messages onto beer… Read
• BrewDog acquires Berlin brewery and taproom from Stone Brewing: Scottish craft brewer BrewDog is acquiring Stone Brewing’s brewery and taproom in Berlin. It has also announced the latest round of Equity for Punks to fund its plans for a brewery in China and craft beer hotel in London… Read
• Lion acquires Magic Rock Brewing: Australian beer and beverage company Lion has acquired 100% of UK craft brewer Magic Rock Brewing Company, as it seeks to become ‘a key player’ in the UK craft market… Read
• Dunkin’ releases second beer innovation with Harpoon Brewery: Last fall Dunkin’ announced a limited edition partnership with Harpoon Brewery for its first-ever beer, the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter. The two have teamed up again for a warm weather brew, the Harpoon Dunkin’ Summer Coffee Pale Ale. Dunkin’ also recently expanded its Signature Latte line with three permanent flavors… Read

And, thanks to reader Polly Adema, here is one more:

• Beer as a wellness beverage?  The mind boggles.

The George Institute in Australia (see clarification below) publishes an annual index holding the ten largest U.S. food and beverage corporations accountable for how they addrss nutrition challenges.

The 2018 Index ranks corporations on their governance, products, accessability, marketing, lifestyle, labeling, and engagement.  Here’s what it looks like.

Here’s how this is explained:

Seven out of ten companies claim to focus on improving health and nutrition (all except Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper Snapple and Kraft Heinz), as expressed in their mission statements or corporate growth strategies, the objectives they defined related to health and wellness are mostly limited to product development, product reformulation and responsible marketing. Only two companies (Nestlé and Unilever) have defined a more comprehensive set of objectives within their nutrition strategy.

To remind you: food corporations are not social service or public health agencies.  They have stockholders to please as their first priority.  The conflicts of interest with public health approaches are obvious.  That’s why none of them does particularly well on this Index.

Clarification from a reader

I believe you are referring to the US Spotlight Index, a product of the Access to Nutrition Foundation, an independent nonprofit in the Netherlands.  (https://www.accesstonutrition.org).  The George Institute provided research support for the US Spotlight index. RWJF [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] was a major funder.  The Foundation has also published an India Spotlight Index (2016) and a Global Index (latest in 2018).  Shiriki Kumanyika chairs the Expert Group.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have issued a joint statement endorsing soda taxes along with other policies aimed at reducing risks for childhood obesity (the full statement is published in Pediatrics).

The AAP and AHA recommend:

• Local, state and national policymakers should consider raising the price of sugary drinks, such as via an excise tax, along with an accompanying educational campaign. Tax revenues should go in part toward reducing health and socioeconomic disparities.

• Federal and state governments should support efforts to decrease sugary drink marketing to children and teens.

• Healthy drinks such as water and milk should be the default beverages on children’s menus and in vending machines, and federal nutrition assistance programs should ensure access to healthy food and beverages and discourage consumption of sugary drinks.

• Children, adolescents, and their families should have ready access to credible nutrition information, including on nutrition labels, restaurant menus, and advertisements.

• Hospitals should serve as a model and establish policies to limit or discourage purchase of sugary drinks.

Comment:  This action of the AAP is truly remarkable.  In 2015, this Academy was heavily criticized for taking funding from Coca-Cola and, surely not coincidentally, saying little about the need for children to reduce consumption of sugary drinks.  Once exposed, the AAP said it could no longer accept that funding. I did, however, hear an alternative story.  Coca-Cola officials told me that as a result of their transparency initiative, the company would no longer fund the Pediatric, Dietetic, and Family Practice Academies.  It is also hardly a coincidence that now that the AAP no longer takes money from Coke, it is free to promote soda taxes as a useful public health strategy.

The industry newsletter, NutraIngredients.com, regularly posts Special Editions on Probiotics, meaning collections of its articles on the topic.  These promote the benefits—to digestion and many other physiological and mental aspects—of eating healthy bacteria.   But do probiotics really work?  And could they actually be harmful?  See comments below these selected articles.

• • Baby faeces’ ‘good bacteria’ a solid basis for disease-tackling probiotic supplement: ‘Good bacteria’ found in infant faeces could form the basis of a probiotic supplement that could help lower disease risk as researchers point to babies’ good health and absence of age-related diseases as good starting points… Read 
  • Survival of the fittest: Gut colonisation study could lead to gene-targeting probiotics: New probiotic products targeting individual genes for gut microbial diversity could be on the horizon after researchers outline a data-based approach that identifies the growth of beneficial microbes… Read 
  • Use of probiotics linked to brain sluggishness and stomach bloating: Study:  The use of probiotics could lead to a build-up of bacteria in the gut causing brain fogginess, US researchers conclude, as they also note its use is linked to bloating of the stomach… Read
  • No BBC, probiotics are not ‘quite useless’: A new BBC article dismisses the benefits of probiotics because a study failed to find colonization. It is a serious mistake to confuse colonization with efficacy and we need to get this message across to consumers… Read  
  • Delivery systems a ‘determining factor’ in probiotic success, suggests Lumina Intelligence: Delivery systems for probiotic supplements will determine probiotic storage, release time and viability through the body, according to recent research with these systems’ ability largely determining product success… Read  
  • Prebiotics as a concept still not well understood by many consumers, experts say: Research done by the Global Prebiotic Association shows that prebiotics as a concept is gaining traction with dedicated supplement users but has a long way to go to gain mainstream acceptance… Read
  • Focus on functional sports benefits seen as growing opportunity within microbiome research: Research in the effects of exercise on the microbiome has boosted not just a recent startup, but will fuel a growing category within the wider field of probiotics, an expert says… Read
  • Why PepsiCo, Coca-cola are betting on functional food and beverage brands: Legacy CPG companies PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have each snapped up or invested heavily in a functional food and beverage brand this year… Read
  • Highlights from the Harvard Probiotics Symposium: The recent Harvard Probiotics Symposium brought together scientific experts from across the globe to discuss: “Gut Health, Microbiota & Probiotics Throughout the Lifespan: Dietary Influences”. Here’s what we learned… Read
  • Prebiotic combination shows metabolic benefits for adults with acne: Pilot data: A combination of fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) prebiotics may improve glycemic and lipid metabolic measures in women with acne, suggests a small study from Italy… Read

Two recent articles in Cell raise questions about the benefits of probiotics.

• Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and Microbiome Features: Probiotics transiently colonize the human gut mucosa in highly individualized patterns, thereby differentially impacting the indigenous microbiome and host gene-expression profile, a trait which is predictable by baseline host and microbiome features, but not by stool shedding.
• Post-Antibiotic Gut Mucosal Microbiome Reconstitution Is Impaired by Probiotics and Improved by Autologous FMT: Probiotics perturb rather than aid in microbiota recovery back to baseline after antibiotic treatment in humans.

In translation:

• The murine [mouse] & human gut mucosal microbiome only partially correlates with stool
• Mice feature an indigenous-microbiome driven colonization resistance to probiotics
• Humans feature a person-specific gut mucosal colonization resistance to probiotics
• Probiotic colonization is predictable by pre-treatment microbiome & host features

In further translation:

• Not everyone responds to probiotics, which means that they may be worth a try and you may get lucky.

And an even more recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine questions whether probiotics might be harmful.  It warns about:

• The safety of bacteria in probiotic supplements has not been fully established.
• They can lead to infections and allergic reactions.
• Probiotic supplements often do not meet manufacturing standards (identity, purity, strength, composition).
• Introduction of new genes for antibiotic resistance into microbiomes.

The article concludes:

Consumers and physicians should not assume that the label on probiotic supplements provides adequate information to determine if consuming the live microorganism is worth the risk.

What to think about all this?  If you like yogurt, enjoy!  But supplements are another matter.

Coming October 30:  My new book about food company sponsorship of nutrition research and its effects on public health.

The Kirkus review (August 1)

A leading nutritionist asks whether consumers can trust highly publicized research into whether food and beverages are healthy and safely produced.

Nestle (Emerita, Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health/New York Univ.; Big Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning), 2015, etc.), who has a doctorate in molecular biology and a master’s degree in public health nutrition and has conducted decades of research into food producers, is perfectly positioned for this topic. She makes the convincing case that because so much of the research is paid for by industries that benefit from the results, buyers should interpret the results skeptically. Many of Nestle’s previous books, articles, and academic studies focused on specific types of food. Here, the author turns her attention to large corporations, investigating why they pay for supposedly independent researchers, why the quality of the research might be compromised by conflicts of interests, how consumers can separate reliable science from compromised science, and why consumers should lobby legislators, government regulatory agencies, and universities for reforms regarding the disclosure of conflicts. Nestle emphasizes research paid for and disseminated by the sugar/candy industry, producers of dairy foods, marketers of meat, and—in its own chapter, “A Case Study in Itself”—the soda giant Coca-Cola. Since the author is a prolific nutrition researcher who has accepted funding that could involve conflicts of interest, she admirably scrutinizes her own policies of funding and how she discloses it. Ultimately, researchers must act as ethicists as well as scientists. When her own studies and those of fellow researchers become marketing tools for multinational conglomerates, the author admits that she feels queasy about how consumers might be misled by the marketing. On the other hand, she writes, some studies paid for by industry can be trusted scientifically—and be marketed and advertised responsibly.

Nestle proves yet again that she is a unique, valuable voice for engaged food consumers.

Other early reviews & interviews based on the bound galley proofs

Sept 25 La Stampa (Italy): “I cibi di lunga vita sono illusori e troppi sponsor li promuovono.”

Sept 24  Publishers Weekly: ” a groundbreaking look at how food corporations influence nutrition research and public
policy.”

Aug 13 Booklist review: “This well-documented, accessible venture makes a compelling argument.”

Aug 1  Kirkus review: “Nestle proves yet again that she is a unique, valuable voice for engaged food consumers.”

July 17  Phil Lempert’s Lempert Report: Get ready for a new era of transparency (video)

July 9  David Wineberg, “Nutrition: conflict of interest as a career,” Medium.com.

Feb 12 Finnish Public Radio interview about Unsavory Truth (Google Translate, English)

Jan 31 Profile in New Scientist: The Unpalatable Truth about Your Favorite foods

I was interested to read FoodNavigator-Asia’s account of food industry comments on what to do about obesity is Australia.

By all reports, two-thirds of Australian adults meet definitions of overweight or obesity, along with a quarter of all children.  A Senate committee is collecting ideas about what to do about this, including those from the food industry.

Food-Navigator-Asia has taken a look at some of the submitted comments, particularly in light of comments from medical groups encouraging social, environmental, regulatory and medical interventions, and arguing that food companies should be kept out of formulating policies due to their inherent conflicts of interest.

The article quotes three companies.

Coca-Cola Amatil says taxes would be counterproductive because it is already reducing the sugar in its products.

Fonterra (a dairy company) says obesity is not the problem; instead, underconsumption of dairy products is the problem.

Nestlé [no relation] blames consumers; it is trying to reduce salt and sugar in its products but the public isn’t buying them.  It also blames government, which it says should do a better job of educating the public about diet and health.

Obesity poses a formidable problem for food companies making junk foods.  They have stockholders to please.  They cannot be expected to voluntarily act in the interest of public health if doing so affects profits.

That is why food companies should have no role whatsoever in developing policies to prevent or treat obesity.

My email inbox was flooded last week with The Obesity Society’s call for more research on the value of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.

“Although taxing SSBs might generate revenue that can be used to promote other healthy food items, the net outcome may not necessarily decrease overweight and obesity rates in the United States or worldwide,” said Steven B. Heymsfield, MD, FTOS, President-Elect of The Obesity Society (TOS) and professor and director of the Body Composition-Metabolism Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Why would a professional society that represents people who ostensibly care about obesity science, treatment, and prevention issue a statement aimed at casting doubt on a demonstrably effective public health measure?  (Soda companies know the taxes are effective; that’s why they fight them so hard).

The Obesity Society (TOS), alas, often appears far more favorable to the interests of food and beverage companies than those of public health.  Could funding of the society and its members have anything to do with this?

Here is the TOS position on corporate funding:

TOS recognizes the value in providing any donor that wishes to support our mission to find solutions to the obesity epidemic the opportunity to provide financial support.

The current TOS policy expressly eliminates all forms of evaluation or judgment of the funding source (other than the stipulation that funding is reasonably assumed not to be derived from activities deemed ‘illegal’).

TOS chooses instead to focus its ethical mission on transparency in disclosing the sources of funding, clear stipulations outlining our commitment to the ethical use of funds, and a commitment to non-influence of the funding sources over the scientific aspects of funded projects and TOS as a whole.

Translation: We will take money from any company, regardless of the effects of its products on public health.

The TOS rationale is that disclosure takes care of the problem and that funding won’t influence the science.  Unfortunately for this view, research demonstrates that disclosure does not eliminate the influence of funding, and the influence of funding is considerable—though often unrecognized, as is apparent in this case.

TOS has a disclosure policy, and discloses its officers’ conflicts of interest.  These are considerable.

• The TOS president’s university, Louisiana State, has received more funding from Coca-Cola than any other in recent years.  Researchers there have been funded generously by Coca-Cola.
• An elected president of TOS had to resign over charges that he had been paid by the restaurant industry to file an affidavit opposing New York City’s calorie-labeling proposal.

In 2013, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff resigned his TOS membership over the society’s sponsorship policies.  In his comment on the current TOS statement, Freedhoff points out that “sugar-sweetened beverage taxes decrease sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and increase healthier beverage consumption while providing the greatest potential health benefits to low income consumers.”

TOS members who care about creating a healthier food environment should consider joining Dr. Freedhoff.  lf not, they should insist that TOS leadership take vigorous pro-public health stances on matters affecting their patients’ health.

Additional comments, October 31, 2018

Yesterday I received a message from Liz Szabo, a reporter for Kaiser Health News, who is writing a piece on TOS’s relationships with food companies.  She questioned Steve Heymsfield, the group’s current president, who responded at length with a message that included this paragraph:

Marion Nestle, on the other hand, is professor “emeritus” and our understanding is that she no longer reports directly to a dean at New York University. That created a hurdle for us when trying to manage Dr. Nestle’se false and misleading blog related to this matter on her website. Even after learning her comments were misleading from Dr. Popkin, and unlike Popkin who has a high ethical standard, she failed to take down that post.

This surprised me, because nobody from TOS or anywhere else had written me to correct the post, Dr. Popkin’s corrections were to something he—not I—had written, and my ongoing relationship with NYU is readily evident from the information posted under About on this site.

I pointed this out to Dr. Heymsfield, who replied with annotations to my post.  Most of these deal with opinion and interpretation rather than fact.  The one thing I got “completely false” is my interpretation that TOS lacks standards for deciding which donors are acceptable.  Dr. Heymsfield says it does.  I am happy to hear that and stand corrected on that point.