Nestlé moves to voluntarily restrict confectionery marketing to under 16’s from 2023

A key decision has been made by Nestlé over responsible marketing, as it unveils plans to voluntarily restrict confectionery and ice-cream marketing to children under 16, in a bid to further promote healthier lifestyles, writes Neill Barston.

The past few years have seen governments around the world contemplate bringing in mandatory regulations, including the UK government’s latest HFSS regulations aimed at tackling the obesity epidemic facing the country.

Notably, aspects of the policy have met with resistance from Britain’s Food and Drink Federation, including plans effectively ban confectionery at check-outs and end of shelf positions, as well as industry concerns over television advertising bans – now delayed until 2024, restricting before the watershed daytime screen adverts for product ranges considered high in fat, sugar and salt, including confectionery and snacks.

For its part, Nestlé said that its new Marketing Communication to Children policy will prohibit direct advertising of confectionery and ice-cream as well as water-based beverages with added sugars to children below 16 years of age. As the business noted, its policy reaffirms the ban on product marketing communication targeting children between 0 and 6 years of age, as per previous versions.

This standard will be applied to TV and online platforms, including social media and gaming ones with greater than 25% of their audience under 16 years old. Additionally, Nestlé will not collect data of minors and only partner with social media influencers over the age of 18. The new policy will take effect as of July 1, 2023 and will be applied globally. Nestlé is one of the first food and beverage companies to voluntarily adopt such strict standards. Nestlé is externally recognised for its industry-leading responsible marketing practices by the Access to Nutrition Index and calls for more companies to put forward similar measures that support the wellbeing of children.

As the business added, it would aim to use its existing nutrition services, educational tools and recipes alongside additional marketing safeguards helps give children a solid foundation for building a healthy lifestyle. It believed this would be achieved through its Nestlé for Healthier Kids programme and campaigns a such as “adopt a fruit, adopt a vegetable”, #cooktogether and “healthy food for the future”, which it added had reached over 80 million children in the past six years.