foodwatch advertising insult of the month for February goes to Knorr “Vitamin Plus Basis for Mushroom Ragout” – 2024-02-09 17:53:31

Ready-made sauces to cover your vitamin needs? Foodwatch calls for clear rules for nutrition-related advertising

Vienna (OTS) – The foodwatch advertising insult of the month goes to Knorr and its “Vitamin Plus Basis for Mushroom Ragout”. Vitamins B, C and E are prominently advertised on the front. The powder for the ready-made sauce contains a total of six added vitamins, but is highly processed. The list of ingredients also contains 5 different types of sugar: lactose, dextrose, maltodextrin, caramel syrup and sugar.

For Heidi Porstner, head of foodwatch Austria and nutritionist, consumers can easily be misled by vitamin advertising: “Knorr probably wants to give its “base for mushroom ragout” a healthy look. However, foods that do not represent any particular added value for the diet are often spiced up with vitamins. We find that problematic. Clear rules are needed for advertising vitamins and minerals.”

By enriching and promoting vitamins and minerals, consumers could be led to believe that their vitamin requirements could also be easily met with finished products. It becomes particularly problematic when this happens to the detriment of a balanced diet with fresh foods. Manufacturers make good money with health advertising. But unbalanced foods are often fortified with vitamins and nutrients and advertised.

The fact that Knorr is allowed to advertise its basis for mushroom ragout with vitamins is also due to a gap in the implementation of the EU Claims Regulation. Since 2006, it has regulated the use of nutritional and health-related claims on foods. Among other things, it specifies the minimum amount of vitamins and minerals that a food must contain in order to advertise it. It has not yet been determined how balanced such a food must be overall.

To date, there are no clear criteria for this. The EU Commission was actually supposed to present so-called nutritional profiles for nutritional and health advertising as early as 2009. This should contain the maximum fat. Sugar or salt content can be set for foods that want to advertise with health or nutritional claims. But nothing has happened so far. In 2022, the EU Commission let another deadline pass.

A few weeks ago the EU Parliament found clear words about this and in a resolution “Regrets that the Commission’s proposal on nutritional profiles has not yet been presented, although it was planned for 2022 as part of the review of legislation on consumer food information.” MEPs point out the relevance and importance of nutritional profiles in the context of the use of nutrition and health claims.

In the meantime, unbalanced foods can still be spiced up with vitamins and minerals and then widely advertised. In addition to the Knorr basis for mushroom ragout, foodwatch has taken a closer look at a few other products that advertise vitamins and minerals:

• Take 2 laughing gum garden gnomes: advertise vitamins, fruit and vegetable juice, and probably want to calm the parents’ conscience, but they contain over 50 percent sugar.
• Junior poultry spread from Inzersdorfer: advertises “a lot of calcium”, but consists of almost 30 percent fat and, according to the WHO, should not be advertised to children.
• Ovaltine – the classic: has added 10 vitamins and 2 minerals and advertises all sorts of health promises. The fact is: drinking cocoa consists of over 50 percent sugar and is therefore anything but suitable for a daily children’s breakfast.
• Nesquick Duo breakfast cereals from Nestlé: are enriched with 7 vitamins and minerals. But they contain over 20 grams of sugar per 100 grams – too much for a healthy, everyday children’s diet. According to the WHO, this product should also not be advertised to children.

Further information about the products

Heidi Porstner makes foodwatch’s demand clear: “Advertising with nutrients or health promises must be linked to a balanced nutritional composition. The EU Commission must now finally submit the nutritional profiles that have been required for a long time. So that unbalanced products are no longer allowed to present themselves in a “healthy” light.”

Questions & Contact:

Heidi Porstner, head of foodwatch Austria,
Tel: 0660 10 75 327

E-Mail: presse@foodwatch.at
foodwatch Austria
Turmburggasse 5/4
1060 Wien

foodwatch Austria is part of foodwatch e. V. based in Germany, Berlin Charlottenburg association register: VR 21908 B, board: Jörg Rohwedder and Dr. Chris Methmann