Nutrition Strategy Steering Group: Minutes of meeting 24 April 2008

Dawn Primarolo - Minister of State (Public Health)
Dame Deirdre Hutton (FSA)
Stephen Esom (Marks & Spencer)
Ian El-Mokadem (Compass)
Paul Lincoln (NHF)
Gavin Neath (Unilever)
Sue Davies (Which)
Rosemary Hignett
Will Cavendish
Clara Swinson
Sarah Hall (DH)

Dawn Primarolo welcomed all members to the fifth meeting of the Nutrition Strategy Steering Group (NSSG).

Apologies were received from Salman Amin (Pepsi Co), Lord Whitty (National Consumer Council), Andy Clarke (Asda), and Justin King (Sainsbury’s).

Deirdre Hutton reported on discussions with members on the NSSG’s role in taking forward the Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives strategy.

The key messages were:

• strong support for a key operational role for NSSG, which would need to meet more often and might need wider membership; consensus that partnership was the right way forward and recognition that this is a very challenging agenda
• members suggested that strategic workstreams should be taken forward separately, with clarity about who does what and commitments to outcomes. There was an expectation of secretariat support from FSA
• Gavin Neath confirmed Unilever’s agreement to the publication of information on its workplace catering. The FSA would follow up individually with members that were not present
• written feedback on progress on the proposal for joint FSA/industry taskforce to disseminate good practice on workplace catering would be provided before the next meeting.

Action: Rosemary Hignett

Clara Swinson introduced the paper which emphasises the importance of seeing the code in the wider context of the other actions set out in the Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives strategy.

The principles underpinning the proposed partnership working were agreed, with the addition of clear timescales and effective monitoring, involvement of all stakeholders and an evidence-based approach.

It is important to agree clear priority outcomes within each strand with agreed timetables, so that efforts can be focused on making further progress. There was a strong evidence base for action and a lot has already been done and it is essential to build and maintain momentum.

Portion size work could focus, in the first instance, on snack food and drinks, perhaps using a calorie-based approach, and could look at plated meals in the catering sector.

Progress continued to be made on reformulation, where there were already clear targets in the form of maximum intakes. Gavin Neath described the progress on the Dairy Partnership where there was strong industry engagement and key challenges were involving the retail sector and competition issues.

On rebalancing promotions to children, it was important to identify significant measurable outcomes.

There was strong support for agreement of a single set of healthy eating messages that all could disseminate.

Work to identify an effective means of conveying nutrition information in food service should be taken forward in discussion with stakeholders.

There was broad support for the proposals on stakeholder engagement. IGD could play a constructive role, and NGOs must be involved. Different approaches would be appropriate for each strand of activity and an expectation of consensus would be unreasonable.

The paper identified the lead government department for each strand. The respective leads would now take work forward to agree outcomes and milestones for each strand, recognising the progress that had already been made.

The update note and copies of fieldwork document were provided. Fieldwork documents would also be shared with the Advisory Group of stakeholders.

progress on agreeing clear outcomes and milestones for the Healthy Food Code

healthy eating messaging

portion size

progress on catering

A replacement IGD representative would be sought to replace David Reid. Two additional members, one from industry and one from an NGO, would be invited to join the group.