Tick of approval for Fonterra’s Food and Nutrition guidelines

The guidelines make sure Fonterra is continuously moving its product portfolio towards reduced use of added sugars, salt and other additives, while maintaining food safety and quality. 

“The endorsement of our guidelines by the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation is an integral part of providing trustworthy nutrition to our consumers. We will use these new guidelines, along with food standards and regulations, to continue producing high quality dairy as an important part of a healthy, balanced diet,” said Fonterra General Manager Nutrition Angela Rowan.

As a global dairy company, Fonterra recognises the world is faced with significant nutrition problems at different ends of the spectrum; poor quality diets leading to nutritional deficiencies or obesity - and sometimes both. These are problems we want to help solve.

“Landing on our Food and Nutrition Guidelines hasn’t been a short sprint; it’s been years of hard work to ensure they reflect what we want to achieve and are aligned with international authorities,” said Angela.

“To achieve our ambition of making a difference in the lives of two billion people by 2025, we need to raise awareness of the value of dairy nutrition globally while making dairy nutrition accessible through a range of different formats.

“Our product categories will always serve different customer and consumer needs. While many of our products meet the tough standards set in the guidelines, there is still work to do as we continuously improve our products across all of our markets. Our Anchor Uno children’s yoghurt was reformulated with the guidelines in mind and it’s now the children’s yoghurt with the lowest sugar content in New Zealand*.

“It’s important we have these guidelines, so our products are mapped against them and we can lead by example. Having a strong commitment to providing honest nutrition in our products is what distinguishes trustworthy food companies from the rest.”

Angela said Fonterra’s indulgent products such as ice cream are created to be consumed occasionally as part of a healthy diet, and not only do we strive to promote these products responsibly, we always seek opportunities to make improvements.

“When Tip Top moved to all natural colours and flavours, it involved significant work to make sure no compromises were made on quality and flavour,” said Angela.

These guidelines are just one way Fonterra is helping tackle the world’s nutritional challenges. We also committed to the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s Healthy Kids Industry Pledge, making sure Kiwi kids have access to good nutrition and families have the information they need to support making healthy choices.

*Anchor Uno is the lowest sugar kids’ yoghurt brand based on average sugar content per 100g of the top five kids’ yoghurt brands.