Search results: Coca Cola

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.

In 2017, Jennifer Pomeranz and Mark Pertschuck published an article in the American Journal of Public Health titled State Preemption: A Significant and Quiet Threat to Public Health in the United States.

How right they were.

Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law banning new soda tax initiatives in the state until 2030, thereby preempting local initiatives planned and in progress.

How did this happen?

Raw, overt power politics (my emphasis throughout).  The Sacramento Bee shows how it’s done.

The Hill explains that this bill was a compromise.

The measure was a last-minute compromise to stop an initiative circulated by the beverage industry that would make it more difficult to raise state and local taxes in California.  “Mayors from countless cities have called to voice their alarm and to strongly support the compromise which this bill represents,” Brown wrote in a signing message.

Big Soda’s tactic: use California’s ballot initiative process to put forth a measure requiring a two-thirds majority to pass any new tax legislation.  Brown and those mayors must have assumed it would pass (anything to prevent new taxes).  Brown said he would agree to a 12-year moratorium on new soda taxes if the soda industry would withdraw the measure.  It did, and he signed.

In explaining the so-called “compromise” (in quotes because this was blackmail), US News quotes state senator Scott Wiener (Dem-San Francisco):

This industry is aiming a nuclear weapon at government in California and saying, ‘If you don’t do what we want we are going to pull the trigger and you are not going to be able to fund basic government services.”

In other words, the beverage industry held the state hostage. Like the Sacramento Bee, I’d call this a shakedown.

The Sacramento Bee also called it extortion—a power play by the American Beverage Association that:

appears to be working as intended. As the deadline for signing the state budget approaches this week, a developing trailer bill attached to it would give Big Soda a 12-year ban on local soda taxes in exchange for dropping a ballot initiative that would threaten the finances of cities throughout California. Who says extortion doesn’t pay?

The New York Times explains the “stunning” preemption:

Now the beverage industry has a new approach. Instead of fighting the ordinances city by city, it is turning to states, trying to pass laws preventing any local governments from taxing their products.

The reactions have been fierce.

Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association says, “We’ve seen some cynical moves to protect profits, but this soda tax ban is a new low.”   The American Heart Association issued a statement:

The bill—a last-minute, backroom deal negotiated and written in secret by beverage industry lobbyists and their allies—is a significant step backwards in the ongoing effort to reduce overconsumption of sugary drinks.

“This is one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen in more than 30 years spent fighting for better health for kids and families,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “We could not be more disappointed to see this bill, taken straight from the tobacco industry playbook, pass.”

The LA Times said “Shame on California lawmakers for caving in to the soda industry.”

Salon explains:

There’s a lot at stake for America’s biggest soda companies. Carbonated soft drinks – such as Coke, Fanta, Sprite, and Fresca – make up two-thirds of Coca-Cola’s production, and U.S. soda sales earned the company more than $10 billion in 2015. And PepsiCo’s soda sales – including Pepsi, 7Up, and Mountain Dew – still account for one-quarter of the company’s $38 billion in North American sales, despite a shift toward healthier products. But soda consumption fell to its lowest point in 31 years in the U.S. in 2016, according to Fortune, and Coca-Cola concedes that sweetened beverage taxes “are hurting Coke’s business.”

I’ll end with this quote from the New York Times:

Bill Monning, the Senate majority leader, was one of a handful of Democrats who voted against the bill. He called its passage “unprecedented” and said it would stop cities and counties “from being able to take steps to protect the health of their residents”…“It’s a sad day for democracy in California,” he said. “But ever the optimist I think that the outrage of Big Soda blackmailing the state legislature and the people of California is going to boomerang.”

Let’s make sure that happens.

And while we are at it, don’t let this happen in your state.  If the soda industry threatens to mess with state elections, tell your representatives and governor to resist.  California public health advocates: keep the pressure on.  Advocate for bans on sodas everywhere you can: schools, hospitals, workplaces, government offices.  Expose what the industry is doing to protect its profits at the expense of public health.  Don’t give up.  Courage!

For the record, here’s where to find out more about this shameful episode.

• On Twitter, see #NoSodaShakedown
• The Assembly hearing (video)
• Joint statement from the American Heart Association and 20 other organizations opposing the soda industry’s actions
• Statement from the Public Health Institute
• Nancy Brown’s dinner invitation to Jerry Brown
• San Jose Mercury News: Big Soda’s Big Play 
• The American Beverage Association’s $450,000 contribution to an election committee
• Shaniece Alexander and Anna Lappé’s Big Food is the new Big Tobacco
• Larry Cohen in The Hill: alarm bells
• Latest development: California medical societies want soda tax on the ballot

Forbes has published a ranking of the top 2000 global companies (all kinds, not just food) by a composite score of revenue, profit, assets, and market value.

Forbes summarizes some of the information for food processing companies.  By its measure, Anheuser Busch, Nestlé, and PepsiCo are the top three.

Coca-Cola, however, ranks #209, a big drop from last year’s #86.  It did not have a good year last year.

You can sort the list by name or category.  I did that for four categories: Beverage, Food processing, Food retail, and Restaurants.

Walmart does not show up as a food retailer; Forbes considers it a Discount Store, even though food accounts for nearly half of Walmart’s revenues, nearly $200 billion a year.

Here are the food, beverage, retail, and restaurants that show up as among the top 250 companies, worldwide.  I only included sales and profits in this  table; you would have to add in assets and market value to understand the ranking system.

Food, beverage, retail, and restaurant companies among the biggest 250 companies worldwide.

*About 40% of sales are from food.

This is why Walmart is the elephant in the food-business room.

The AP reports that the reason the WHO committee on preventing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) did not recommend soda taxes is that the US representative vetoed the idea.

The Trump administration has torpedoed a plan to recommend higher taxes on sugary drinks, forcing a World Health Organization panel to back off the U.N. agency’s previous call for such taxes as a way to fight obesity, diabetes and other life-threatening conditions.

The move disappointed many public health experts but was enthusiastically welcomed by the International Food and Beverage Alliance — a group that represents companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo. and Unilever.

The WHO committee’s report appeared in The Lancet last week.  About soda taxes, it said:

The Commissioners represented rich and diverse views and perspectives. There was broad agreement in most areas, but some views were conflicting and could not be resolved. As such, some recommendations, such as reducing sugar consumption through effective taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages and the accountability of the private sector, could not be reflected in this report, despite broad support from many Commissioners.

It did not include soda taxes in its tax recommendation:

Implement fiscal measures, including raising taxes on tobacco and alcohol, and consider evidence-based fiscal measures for other unhealthy products.

This omission is striking in view of WHO’s strong previous positions on the need to reduce NCDs as part of the agency’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and on reducing sugars and taxing sodas as a means to achieve those goals:

• In 2015, WHO recommended  that sugars be consumed at less than 10% of calories.
• In 2016, WHO recommended taxes on sugary drinks as a way to reduce sugar intake and prevent NCDs.

Again a US veto?  Recall the infamous incident in 2003 when the US blocked the agency from recommending a reduction in sugar intake.

The US should not be holding WHO hostage to public health measures.

WHO should not be caving in to US threats.

NCDs are the major cause of worldwide death and disability and we need worldwide efforts to prevent them.  This calls for cooperation, not blackmail.

Shame.

The New York Times describes the enormous gap between the pay of company chief executives and their employees.

Its two printed pages of lists compare CEO total annual compensation (in millions of dollars) to the median pay of employees (in $ thousands).  

Median means half the employees get that amount or more, but the other half gets that amount or less.

I looked for the data on companies that produce, food, beverage, or agricultural products.  I could not find many (where is Coca-Cola?).  Several of the companies of interest—Monsanto, Sysco, and Procter & Gamble, for example—list the pay of the CEOs, but not employees.

Even so, the comparison is striking.  Repeat: CEO pay is in $ millions; worker pay is in $ thousands.

The Times interactive lists provide calculations of the ratios (and its account explains the limitations of these data—part-time work, etc).

If you need quantifiable evidence for income inequality, here it is.

Here is another collection of Food Navigator articles on special topics from a food-industry perspective.

Special Edition: Sugar reduction and sweeteners

Food and beverage manufacturers have a far wider range of sweetening options than ever before, from coconut sugar to allulose, monk fruit and new stevia blends. This special edition looks at the latest market developments, the changing political landscape, formulation challenges and consumer research.

• FlavorHealth seeks to commercialize novel natural high intensity sweetener with a more sugar-like taste than stevia: New Jersey-based FlavorHealth – best known for using high-throughput cell-based screening to identify natural compounds that enhance sweetness and saltiness and reduce bitterness – is aiming to commercialize a novel natural high-intensity sweetener with a flavor profile it claims is much closer to sugar than stevia… Read

• Cargill launches EverSweet fermented steviol glycosides: EverSweet – the hotly-anticipated ‘next-generation’ Reb D and Reb M sweetener from Cargill and Evolva produced via fermentation – is now available in commercial quantities, say the partners, who have also struck a deal to explore whether other high intensity sweeteners could be produced in the same way… Read
• Icon Foods CEO: ‘Out of all of the projects that are in the R&D queue right now, allulose is dominating’: Allulose is the sweetener generating the most buzz among food formulators right now, although many are waiting to see if the FDA exempts it from sugar labeling (it’s technically a sugar, but it’s not metabolized like one), before launching products featuring the ingredient, says Icon Foods CEO Thom King… Read
• Stevia outshines aspartame as high intensity sweetener of choice in global new product launches in 2017: Mintel data* shared by stevia supplier PureCircle shows the number of global new product launches containing stevia grew by 10% in 2017, with stevia utilized in 28% of new products containing high intensity sweeteners, slightly ahead of aspartame – which featured in 25% of launches… Read
• Does diet soda promote weight gain? Debate rages in the courts as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, challenge ‘outlandish’ lawsuits: Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have urged courts to toss claims in a series of lawsuits* alleging consumers are being led to believe that diet sodas “will assist in weight loss or management,” when in fact the opposite may be true… Read
• Kill Cliff exec shares challenges in marketing specialty carbohydrates in age of sugar reduction: Atlanta-based Kill Cliff, a sports beverage brand focusing on clean label formulations, launched a new line of sports drinks called Endure, which features a slow-burning specialty carbohydrate, at the Natural Products Expo West show. However, the carbohydrate may be a double-edged sword….. Read
• ‘Entirely new’ approach to sensory testing is a gamechanger for taste evaluation, claims Opertech Bio. Opertech Bio has developed a novel approach to sensory testing utilising games and rewards, which it claims enables human testers to analyze hundreds of samples in a fraction of the time – and with a greater degree of accuracy – than is possible using traditional taste panel testing… Read
• Ongoing ‘war on sugar’ is not cause for ‘panic just yet,’ stakeholders say: Despite the escalating ‘war on sugar,’ including so-called sin taxes and manufacturers’ efforts to cut-back on the ingredient in some products, industry stakeholders remain confident sugar can hold its own against competing sweeteners and reduction efforts in the coming years… Read
• Mediterranean Umami may help savory applications reduce sugar and sodium: Salt of the Earth’s Mediterranean Umami may allow simultaneous sodium and sugar reduction in clean label foods like savory sauces… Read
• Yooga has ‘drastically less sugar’ than other plant-based yogurts, claims CEO: Multiple exhibitors at the Natural Products Expo West show were showcasing plant-based yogurts this year, but each with a slightly different slant, says Jody Polishchuk, who claims his product – Yooga – delivers on taste and nutrition, without as much sugar… Watch now
• New products from KIND Snacks offer reduced sugar for healthier alternatives to competing options: For KIND Snacks, rising consumer concern about sugar and upcoming changes to the Nutrition Facts panel that will more boldly highlight the nutrient represent an opportunity – rather than a threat – to set itself apart from the competition with new products that have reduced sugar but not reduced taste… Watch now
• Sugar taxes: The global picture in 2017: Sugar taxes have continued to gain momentum in 2017, but the introduction of new legislation is rarely straight-forward. We take a look at countries around the globe where sugar taxes have been making headlines this year… Read
• Pyure Brands: Amazon can be an ‘insanely disruptive’ platform for challenger brands: Amazon can be an “insanely disruptive” platform for challenger brands willing to put in the time and effort to understand how to maximize their prospects on the site, says Pyure Brands, which is giving far larger rivals a run for their money in the stevia-based sweeteners market… Read
• HEYLO! There’s a new sugar replacer in town… and this one’s a game-changer, says ex-PepsiCo exec: The term ‘game-changer’ is bandied around with wearying regularity by food start-ups, but HEYLO – a patented combination of acacia fiber and stevia promising to blow rivals out of the water in the sugar replacement stakes – may actually warrant this moniker, argues the firm behind the new clean label ingredient… Read
• Where next for natural sweeteners? In conversation with Layn USA: Monk fruit is still more expensive than stevia, but significant progress is being made on tackling the pricing and regulatory issues that have historically held the market back, says Layn Corp, a leading supplier of monk fruit and stevia based natural sweeteners… Read

I am in Japan this week and am fascinated to see that Coca-Cola produces special products with seasonal themes, just in time for cherry blossoms (which, alas, are not quite out yet):

And it offers fruity varieties:

For the first time, Coca-Cola is adding alcohol to canned Coke (the rum, as in “Rum and Coca-Cola” was not premixed).  It is launching the new alcohol-laced soft drink for the Japanese market.

Japanese supermarkets are already crowded with alcohol-infused soft drinks and teas.  I got this at the OK Supermarket in Yokohama:

Here’s a close up of one variety:

Most soft drinks in Japan, with or without alcohol, are local brands.

Will alcohol help Coke increase market share?  Can’t wait to find out.