Launch of ATNi’s Breastmilk Substitute (BMS) and Complementary Foods (CF) Marketing Indexes 2024
26 March 2024ATNi has monitored the role of industry in infant and young child nutrition for a decade. We are now only a few hours away from the launch of The Breast-Milk Substitutes (BMS) and Complementary Foods (CF) Marketing Indexes 2024. These reports will be ATNi’s most comprehensive work on the topic to date. Together the indexes assess the world’s top 20 BMS and CF companies, tracking their marketing activities globally and across five country markets. These companies have 70% of the BMS and CF market share.
In order to drive wider engagement and deeper impact, ATNi has lined up a number of bespoke events to reach out to key stakeholders including the companies assessed, institutional investors, public health bodies and policymakers. On March 26th we are in Viet Nam where ATNi is hosting a webinar for the global launch. Please find a link to register for the event here. Later the same week, we are attending a closed event aimed at disseminating our results to policy makers, and CSOs.
On 2nd April we are in the US, working with US Breastfeeding Collective, for the US country report launch. Please register for the event here
ATNi’s main objective is to determine the extent to which major baby food companies market their BMS and CF products in alignment with internationally recognised standards. The CF market is growing, despite WHO guidance on limiting CF products to designated ones for older infants and young children between six months and three years of age. Growing with it are companies’ practices of marketing CF products as suitable for infants under six months of age contrary to WHO recommendations. In light of this ATNi’s ultimate goal is to protect optimal breastfeeding practices and to encourage all baby food companies to market their BMS and CF products in line with this international standard and/or national legal measures, whichever are stricter.
Following publication of the BMS/CF Index in June 2021, ATNi conducted a series of multi-stakeholder consultations with companies, investors, public health experts and other interested parties in mid-2022, discussing proposed changes and revisions to the BMS/CF Marketing methodology. After completion of the consultative process, ATNi finalized the methodology revisions for the BMS and CF Marketing Indexes 2024.
ATNi’s assessments focus on all products that are covered by the Code, i.e. breast-milk substitutes and commercial complementary foods for infants and young children up to three years of age. In accordance with this and reflecting the consultation process outputs, for this iteration we created two separate Indexes to reflect the different issues between BMS and CF products.
The 2024 BMS and CF Indexes are our largest yet, covering more companies and products than ever before. In parallel, to ensure comparability across the companies’ in-country assessments in the BMS and CF Marketing Indexes 2024, ATNi’s country selection was based on ensuring that the companies are assessed in their main BMS/CF markets that represent over 10% and up to 100% of their global BMS/CF market. Thus, the in-depth country assessments expanded to selecting five countries, compared to the previous iterations where we assessed two, which also warranted the use of new methods.
To find the most comprehensive body of work tackling this critical issue
Alongside the BMS and CF Indexes, ATNi received additional funding to conduct a unique study into the nutrient composition of commercial complementary foods, produced by the six largest CF companies, across ten countries. ATNi also analysed the labelling practices across these products. Read more here.
ATNi’s infant and young children is driven by our research team, under the leadership of Mark Wijne (Research Director) and includes our experts, Nadine Nasser, Lucy Cosenza, Ludovica Ibba, Juliana Lima Constantino, Daniela Hernández Morales, and Irene Santoro (researchers) and Marina Plyta and Efi Chatzinikolaou (Partnership Managers).
We very much looking forward to working together with all our stakeholders to transform the baby food market to improve infant and young child nutrition, paving the way to achieving the global nutrition goals set by the WHO for 2025 for increased breastfeeding rates globally.
If you have any queries about the BMS and CF Marketing Indexes 2024, please don’t hesitate to reach out to marina.plyta@accesstonutrition.org