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"Food Industry - organization "
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Development and Implementation
Higher rates of obesity and obesity-related chronic disease are prevalent in communities where there is limited access to affordable, healthy food. The B’More Healthy Communities for Kids (BHCK) trial worked at multiple levels of the food environment including food wholesalers and corner stores to improve the surrounding community’s access to healthy food. The objective of this article is to describe the development and implementation of BHCK’s corner store and wholesaler interventions through formal process evaluation. Researchers evaluated each level of the intervention to assess reach, dose delivered, and fidelity. Corner store and wholesaler reach, dose delivered, and fidelity were measured by number of interactions, promotional materials distributed, and maintenance of study materials, respectively. Overall, the corner store implementation showed moderate reach, dose delivered, and high fidelity. The wholesaler intervention was implemented with high reach, dose, and fidelity. The program held 355 corner store interactive sessions and had 9,347 community member interactions, 21% of which were with children between the ages of 10 and 14 years. There was a 15% increase in corner store promoted food stocking during Wave 1 and a 17% increase during Wave 2. These findings demonstrate a successfully implemented food retailer intervention in a low-income urban setting.
Journal Article
Effects of an Advocacy Trial on Food Industry Salt Reduction Efforts—An Interim Process Evaluation
The decisions made by food companies are a potent factor shaping the nutritional quality of the food supply. A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocate for corporate action to reduce salt levels in foods, but few data define the effectiveness of advocacy. This present report describes the process evaluation of an advocacy intervention delivered by one Australian NGO directly to food companies to reduce the salt content of processed foods. Food companies were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 22) or control (n = 23) groups. Intervention group companies were exposed to pre-planned and opportunistic communications, and control companies to background activities. Seven pre-defined interim outcome measures provided an indication of the effect of the intervention and were assessed using intention-to-treat analysis. These were supplemented by qualitative data from nine semi-structured interviews. The mean number of public communications supporting healthy food made by intervention companies was 1.5 versus 1.8 for control companies (p = 0.63). Other outcomes, including the mean number of news articles, comments and reports (1.2 vs. 1.4; p = 0.72), a published nutrition policy (23% vs. 44%; p = 0.21), public commitment to the Australian government’s Food and Health Dialogue (FHD) (41% vs. 61%; p = 0.24), evidence of a salt reduction plan (23% vs. 30%; p = 0.56), and mean number of communications with the NGO (15 vs. 11; p = 0.28) were also not significantly different. Qualitative data indicated the advocacy trial had little effect. The absence of detectable effects of the advocacy intervention on the interim markers indicates there may be no impact of the NGO advocacy trial on the primary outcome of salt reduction in processed foods.
Journal Article
Strengthening of accountability systems to create healthy food environments and reduce global obesity
To achieve WHO's target to halt the rise in obesity and diabetes, dramatic actions are needed to improve the healthiness of food environments. Substantial debate surrounds who is responsible for delivering effective actions and what, specifically, these actions should entail. Arguments are often reduced to a debate between individual and collective responsibilities, and between hard regulatory or fiscal interventions and soft voluntary, education-based approaches. Genuine progress lies beyond the impasse of these entrenched dichotomies. We argue for a strengthening of accountability systems across all actors to substantially improve performance on obesity reduction. In view of the industry opposition and government reluctance to regulate for healthier food environments, quasiregulatory approaches might achieve progress. A four step accountability framework (take the account, share the account, hold to account, and respond to the account) is proposed. The framework identifies multiple levers for change, including quasiregulatory and other approaches that involve government-specified and government-monitored progress of private sector performance, government procurement mechanisms, improved transparency, monitoring of actions, and management of conflicts of interest. Strengthened accountability systems would support government leadership and stewardship, constrain the influence of private sector actors with major conflicts of interest on public policy development, and reinforce the engagement of civil society in creating demand for healthy food environments and in monitoring progress towards obesity action objectives.
Journal Article
Transferring Racial/Ethnic Marketing Strategies From Tobacco to Food Corporations: Philip Morris and Kraft General Foods
Objectives. To investigate the transfer of marketing knowledge and infrastructure for targeting racial/ethnic minorities from the tobacco to the food and beverage industry in the United States. Methods. We analyzed internal industry documents between April 2018 and April 2019 from the University of California San Francisco Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library, triangulated with other sources. Results. In the 1980s, Philip Morris Companies purchased General Foods and Kraft Foods and created Kraft General Foods. Through centralized marketing initiatives, Philip Morris Companies directly transferred expertise, personnel, and resources from its tobacco to its food subsidiaries, creating a racial/ethnic minority–targeted food and beverage marketing program modeled on its successful cigarette program. When Philip Morris Companies sold Kraft General Foods in 2007, Kraft General Foods had a “fully integrated” minority marketing program that combined target marketing with racial/ethnic events promotion, racial/ethnic media outreach, and corporate donations to racial/ethnic leadership groups, making it a food industry leader. Conclusions. The tobacco industry directly transferred racial/ethnic minority marketing knowledge and infrastructure to food and beverage companies. Given the substantial growth of food and beverage corporations, their targeting of vulnerable populations, and obesity-related disparities, public policy and community action is needed to address corporate target marketing.
Journal Article
A Hierarchy of Unhealthy Food Promotion Effects: Identifying Methodological Approaches and Knowledge Gaps
We assessed the evidence for a conceptual “hierarchy of effects” of marketing, to guide understanding of the relationship between children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing and poor diets and overweight, and drive the research agenda. We reviewed studies assessing the impact of food promotions on children from MEDLINE, Web of Science, ABI Inform, World Health Organization library database, and The Gray Literature Report. We included articles published in English from 2009 to 2013, with earlier articles from a 2009 systematic review. We grouped articles by outcome of exposure and assessed outcomes within a framework depicting a hierarchy of effects of marketing exposures. Evidence supports a logical sequence of effects linking food promotions to individual-level weight outcomes. Future studies should demonstrate the sustained effects of marketing exposure, and exploit variations in exposures to assess differences in outcomes longitudinally.
Journal Article
Investigation of superspreading COVID-19 outbreak events in meat and poultry processing plants in Germany: A cross-sectional study
Since May 2020, several COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in the German meat industry despite various protective measures, and temperature and ventilation conditions were considered as possible high-risk factors. This cross-sectional study examined meat and poultry plants to assess possible risk factors. Companies completed a self-administered questionnaire on the work environment and protective measures taken to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Multivariable logistic regression analysis adjusted for the possibility to distance at least 1.5 meters, break rules, and employment status was performed to identify risk factors associated with COVID-19 cases. Twenty-two meat and poultry plants with 19,072 employees participated. The prevalence of COVID-19 in the seven plants with more than 10 cases was 12.1% and was highest in the deboning and meat cutting area with 16.1%. A subsample analysis where information on maximal ventilation rate per employee was available revealed an association with the ventilation rate (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.996, 95% CI 0.993–0.999). When including temperature as an interaction term in the working area, the association with the ventilation rate did not change. When room temperatures increased, the chance of testing positive for COVID-19 (AOR 0.90 95% CI 0.82–0.99) decreased, and the chance for testing positive for COVID-19for the interaction term (AOR 1.001, 95% CI 1.000–1.003) increased. Employees who work where a minimum distance of less than 1.5 m between workers was the norm had a higher chance of testing positive (AOR 3.61; 95% CI 2.83–4.6). Our results further indicate that climate conditions and low outdoor air flow are factors that can promote the spread of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols. A possible requirement for pandemic mitigation strategies in industrial workplace settings is to increase the ventilation rate.
Journal Article
Power Dynamics in 21st-Century Food Systems
Food systems are central to our very planetary existence, yet they are not fit for purpose in the 21st century because of the enormous damage they do to the environment and human health. Transforming food systems to optimize human health, ecological health, social equity and economic prosperity will require major changes in power dynamics between players to shift the status quo. The purpose of this paper is to assess these power dynamics and the opportunities for the Great Intergenerational Food Transformation (GIFT)—how this current generation in power can transform food systems within one generation for future generations. The current ‘policy inertia’ preventing food policy action is due to the strong opposition from the commercial food sector, the reluctance of governments to regulate and tax, and the lack of demand for policy action from civil society. The translation of the market power of large food industries into self-serving political power is the dominant barrier to action. The most promising systemic lever for holding the major power players (governments and food industries) to account for the GIFT is increasing the power of civil society (including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, professional societies and the public) to demand changes in the political economy of food.
Journal Article
A critical interrogation of the legitimacy of commercial actors in food policy partnerships
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) between commercial actors and governments or other non-commercial organizations are widely encouraged as a way of achieving a range of policy objectives, including the creation of healthier food environments, despite the evidence of their limited effectiveness at doing so. The aims of this qualitative study were to critically interrogate the role and legitimacy of food industry actors as partners in policies to improve the food environment, and to explore related underlying issues that impede the design and implementation of effective policies. Qualitative interviews with 16 academics from 6 countries with expertise on population food policy, including public-private partnerships, to improve the food environment were conducted from January to March 2020. A manual thematic analysis of the data was employed, and theoretical lenses relevant to the commercial determinants of health were applied. Key themes constructed from the data have been conceptualized as ‘fault lines’, metaphorically used here to indicate underlying issues or factors that cause systemic problems or impede success of public health goals. The reported fault lines are categorized as (i) uninterrogated assumptions that partnership working is effective; (ii) the role of exclusive social networks; (iii) the voluntary nature of partnerships; (iv) data ownership; (v) control of narratives; and (vi) the centrality of political ideology. This paper calls for a systematic and critical interrogation of the mechanisms and extent of commercial actors’ involvement in making decisions about healthy diets for the population.
Journal Article
A Call for a National Agenda for a Healthy, Equitable, and Sustainable Food System
In less than a month, US voters will choose their next president and Congress, creating the opportunity for food, farm, and social justice activists to shape a new federal food agenda. Whether Democrats sweep the election or Republicans retain the Senate or White House, the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the deepening economic crisis, and the continuing disruptions from climate change demand rethinking how federal food policies can contribute to improved human and planetary health.The threats to our food system are formidable. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, food insecurity in US households with children more than tripled, from the already unacceptable 9.3% to 29.5%.' In addition, food prices are rising. In the United States, poor diet is now the leading cause of mortality, causing more than half a million deaths per year.2 Almost 60% of the calories in the US diet now come from ultraprocessed foods -energy-dense, nutrient-poor products produced by the industrial food system-that are strongly associated with the rise in diet-related chronic diseases. Our current food system damages our environment as well as our health. A recent Rockefeller Foundation report notes that food production, processing, and transportation are now responsible for widespread deforestation, loss of biodiversity, water pollution, and up to 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change exacerbates food insecurity, intensifies food loss and waste, deepens inequities in food distribution, and harms farmers and food chain workers.
Journal Article