Sustain joins new Commercial Baby Food Review

Sustain's Children's Food Campaign is proud to announce that it has joined the Commercial Baby Food Review, a new cross-sector initiative focused on improving the nutritional quality, composition and marketing of commercial baby and toddler foods in the UK, through stronger enforced regulations. An improved retail offer will contribute to population-level positive impacts on child health and race equity.

Funded by Impact on Urban Health, the Review brings together specialists in early years nutrition, food policy, public affairs, advocacy, public health and academia to drive population change with measurable benefits for child health and equality. The initiative will focus on tactical systemic inequalities in infant and young child feeding, including the disproportionate impact that unhealthy, inappropriate products and misleading marketing can have on low-income families. 

Our Children's Food Campaign will be working alongside leading experts including First Steps Nutrition Trust, Obesity Health Alliance, Bremner & Co,  Planeatry Alliance and the University of Leeds. In particular, Sustain will support new evidence gathering around parental lived experience and insights on how baby and toddler foods are purchased, used and perceived, to help inform future policy making.

Baby Pouches and Health Halos - read more on why the new partnership has been launched.

The Review launches at a time when the commercial baby food sector is under growing scrutiny. Research published last year by the University of Leeds and Which?, alongside the Panorama investigation, “The truth about baby pouches” highlighted the serious concerns of many baby food products marketed as healthy despite being high in sugar and offering poor nutritional quality. The research found:

Product composition

• Around a quarter of all products would need a front-of-pack warning for high sugar

• 41% of main meals were high in sugar

• Cheaper options were often higher in sugar, more watery, and less nutritious, raising further concerns about affordability and inequalities 

Labelling and marketing

• Every product carried nutritional or marketing claims

• Many products labelled for use from 4 months of age, against public health recommendations

Parent insight

• 92% of parents with children aged 0-3 use commercial baby and toddler foods

• 40% of parents with babies under 6 months use these products daily

• 7 in 10 parents would like to see front-of-pack warning labels for products containing high levels of sugar

With voluntary guidelines on baby and toddler foods now published by the government and an 18-month implementation window underway, pressure is growing on manufacturers and retailers to make meaningful improvements. The Review therefore comes at a pivotal moment and will work to develop practical, evidence-informed policy solutions that strengthen accountability, support regulatory reform, improve the commercial baby food retail offer, and better protect babies’ and young children's health.