Investors call on the food and drink sector to improve public health transparency

On 18 November 2024, the responsible investment organisation ShareAction announced that major investors managing £2.34 trillion in assets—including Legal and General Investment Management, Pictet Asset Management, and Nest—are urging prominent food and drink companies such as PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Mondelez to enhance transparency regarding the healthiness of their product sales.

The investors are advocating for the adoption of government-endorsed nutrition standards for public reporting. They argue that reliance on less healthy products poses risks to public health, economic productivity, and long-term business viability.

Tom Sanders, Senior ESG Analyst at Nest, stated that health is a systemic risk affecting the economy, noting that greater transparency would enable companies to address these risks and provide investors with clearer insights. The investors highlight the increasing scrutiny from governments and consumers regarding the sector’s reliance on products high in fat, salt, and sugar. Global obesity rates are rising, with costs projected to exceed £3.34 trillion annually by 2035.

The investor group, supported by ShareAction’s Long-Term Investors in People’s Health initiative, is calling for the sector to:

1. Adopt government-endorsed Nutrient Profiling Models rather than in-house metrics.
2. Regularly report on the healthiness of sales and products to allow stakeholders to assess progress and accountability.

Sophie Lawrence, Stewardship and Engagement Lead at Greenbank, emphasised the importance of high-quality, standardised data for investors to assess company performance. She noted that voluntary initiatives have failed to achieve the necessary scale of change, advocating for mandatory reporting requirements to address the challenges effectively.

In response to the aforementioned publication, ATNi wishes to share the following statement:

Nutrition and public health are long-term material issues for business. However, a lack of disclosure hinders efforts to understand the link between individual F&B manufacturers sales and public health. ATNi’s role is to generate evidence showing how the largest F&B manufactures can improve their products and practices to shape healthier food environments. Our aim is for this data to be used by ATNi’s Investors in Nutrition & Health, as well as organizations like The Food Foundation and ShareAction. ATNi is always happy to lend a hand to ensure that our data is being interpreted correctly.