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Investors Coalition Asks Food & Beverage Companies To Report Their Impact on Public Health

Nov. 21, 2024
ShareAction asked the CEOs of Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellanova, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and PepsiCo to adopt and publicly report on one of three accepted Nutrient Profiling Models.

ShareAction, a coalition representing 31 groups of investors – many of them religious, most of them in Europe – sent a letter to the CEOs of six of the largest American-based food & beverage companies asking them to annually report their companies’ impact on public health.

The CEOs of Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellanova, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and PepsiCo were asked to adopt and publicly report on one of three Nutrient Profiling Models (NPMs): Health Star Rating, Nutri-Score or UK NPM.

Why? Besides being a nice thing to do, ShareAction noted its signatories manage more than $3 trillion in assets – although they didn’t say in which companies or even in which sectors.

Another why: “An over-reliance on the sale of less healthy products leads to poor consumer diets, negative health outcomes, and sicker societies overall. It also exposes companies and their investors to avoidable risks,” the letter said. “In contrast, prioritising healthier products supports our shared goal of creating long-term financial and social value for business, investors and consumers.

“While some companies use their own Nutrient Profiling Models (NPMs) to report on the healthiness of products, doing so raises concerns about validity. The absence of standardisation also hinders investors’ ability to compare health metrics across companies, complicating risk assessment both at the enterprise and portfolio levels. Reporting consistently would allow those of you who are taking productive steps to sell more healthy products, to better illustrate that progress.

“There is now consensus on internationally recognised NPMs and definitions of healthier products; companies like Unilever and Danone are already using them,” it continued. “Disclosing this type of information may soon be required under materiality assessments and international frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Companies disclosing ahead of the implementation of such requirements will place themselves at an advantage.”

Most of the investor signatories are part of ShareAction’s Long-Term Investors in People’s Health initiative, which encourages the integration of health as a responsible investment theme to help build healthier, fairer societies.

Signatories included Adrian Dominican Sisters, Congregation of St. Joseph, Daughters of Charity-Province of St. Louise and Jesuits in Britain … but also Achmea Investment Management, J Stern & Co. and La Banque Postale Asset Management, among others.

See the full letter here.

About the Author

Dave Fusaro | Editor in Chief

Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.

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