Kellogg's has argued in court that new rules restricting the promotion of high salt and sugar foods are unlawful. The Coco Pops manufacturer is bringing legal action against the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) over new regulations, which are due to come into effect in October of this year.
The new rules will restrict where certain types of food are permitted to be displayed within supermarkets or on their websites. It will also ban multi-buy promotions of foods deemed high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS).
In-store promotion of such foods will be limited when the rules come into force, meaning they will not be allowed to be featured in locations such as checkouts, store entrances and aisle ends. At a High Court case in London earlier today (April 27), Kellogg's argued that the regulations do not take into account that cereals “are overwhelmingly consumed with milk” and therefore do not factor in the nutrients added.
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In written submissions, Tom Hickman QC for the cereal manufacturer said: “It is self-evident that breakfast cereals are not eaten dry. They are not designed to be eaten in that way, they are not marketed to be eaten in that way and they are not in practice eaten that way.”
Foods will be assessed by an algorithm known as the nutrient profiling model (NPM), which was developed by the Food Standards Agency nearly two decades ago. Mr Hickman told the court that other dry products designed to be mixed with liquids are assessed “as eaten” with “the sole exception being breakfast cereals”.
The DHSC is disputing Kellogg's claims and will outline case properly on Thursday. In written submissions, Sir James Eadie QC – for DHSC – said the government has “a broad margin” to decide policy related to public health and that the decision was “plainly lawful”.
Sir James wrote: “The thrust of Kellogg’s objection appears to be that, although Kellogg’s HFSS cereal products are intrinsically unhealthy as sold in the packet they may, when consumed, provide a route to the consumption of a healthier product. It does not appear to be Kellogg’s position that the consumption of semi-skimmed milk will contribute in any way to a reduction in childhood obesity or that mixing their HFSS cereals with milk will somehow reduce the sugar that is consumed.”
Sir James also said that a previous review of the NPM system had led to a decision to keep the 100g “as sold” measure “to avoid complexities arising from differences in serving sizes across different cereals and age groups”. He continued: “This approach is an objective and transparent way of identifying whether individual food and drink products are healthier or less healthy on the basis of their nutritional composition.”
