Marketing unhealthy food to children in Asia Pacific - Consumers ...

APPENDIXAbout the reportOur researchThis piece of research from CI explores the techniquesused by six multinational food companies to promoteunhealthy food to children and to get a snapshot of howsignificant this problem is in the Asia Pacific region.Another aim was to examine the industry’s response toconcerns about obesity and to look at the nationalgovernments’ response. The research covered emergingand developing economies in this region, namely, Fiji,Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippinesand Thailand.All CI members involved have produced a country report,which also looks at advertising by national or regionallybased companies. Information has been synthesised fromselected members to produce this regional report. Theinformation used for this report comes from thefollowing organizations:• Fiji – Consumer Council of Fiji (CCF)• Hong Kong – Hong Kong Consumer Council (HKCC)• India – Consumers Association of India (CAI) andConsumers Education and Research Society (CERC) –this information has been combined.• Indonesia –Yayasan Lembaga Konsumen Indonesia,(YLKI)• Malaysia – Federation of Malaysian ConsumersAssociation (FOMCA)• Nepal – SEWA Nepal• Philippines – IBON Foundation• Thailand – Foundation For Consumers (FFC)Research methodologyCI utilised the model used by Which?, the ConsumersAssociation in the UK, for their reports published inNovember 2006 and July 2008 titled Food Fables 12 andFood Fables – the second sitting, which explored industrypolicies on responsible food marketing to kids. Which? isa member of CI. Below is a brief description of theprocess we went through to carry out the research:1. Choosing the manufacturers to focus onThe multinationals were chosen based on their marketshare. As we wanted to be able to make internationalcomparisons, the research focused on the companiesthat have the largest share globally that sell productsin the participating countries. Local food companieswere also chosen by members based on the largestmarket share in the country or in the region.2. Identifying the brands/products these manufacturerssellWe wrote, emailed and called the manufacturers toask for the full list of the food products they primarilysell to kids. We also visited their websites andscanned supermarkets to get this information.3. Assessing which of the products are unhealthyProducts targeted at children were evaluated basedon the UK Foods Standards Agency Criteria trafficlabelling scheme to see if they were high in fat sugaror salt. 13 (See chart page 31.) Those that got highscore either in sugar, fat or salt content wereconsidered as ‘unhealthy’ for the purpose of theresearch. We looked at packaging to study thenutrition information while in cases when this wasmissing; we emailed, wrote, and called theirmanufacturers and requested the information.30 The Junk Food Trap