Our Nutrition Journey (PDF 8.55 MB)
We've set out the challenges of achieving our ambitious nutrition goals over 2010-2020. See Downloads for an accessible version.
Our nutrition philosophy and approach
The fundamentals that underpin our nutrition strategy and how we make decisions and work with others.
Everyone deserves access to good food
We believe in offering healthier options that are affordable and accessible to all, and we’re continuously improving the nutritional profile of our foods and refreshment products.
We also believe it’s our duty to have clear principles to ensure we’re responsible in our marketing, labelling and communications with consumers.
And, as one of the largest food manufacturers in India, we’re taking action to help shape a food system that’s fair for everyone and the planet. We’re driving this through our Positive Nutrition Action Plan (PDF 265.18 KB). But we know we can’t transform the food system alone, so we advocate and partner with others to drive change.
We need an entire food system transformation
We aspire to be a force for good in food
We know that to have a healthy business, we need a healthy society. We’re making sure that our brands are part of the solution. Through our brands, our vision is to be a world-class force for good in food – but what does this mean in practice?
It means helping people to make healthier choices, while still offering food and beverages that they can enjoy without compromising on taste. We can’t tell people what to eat, but we can provide more lower calorie and high nutrition content products to make it easier for people to eat healthy diets.
Our nutrition improvement journey began over 20 years ago when we published our Nutrition Policy, followed by our Nutrition Enhancement Programme. We reviewed all our products worldwide to assess their salt, sugar and saturated fat content and defined actions for improvements. This led to us setting time-bound targets in our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, and by the end of 2020, globally, we had doubled the size of our portfolio of products that meet our Highest Nutritional Standards (HNS).
Healthy options for a healthy diet
We’re ensuring our products are made responsibly – with a focus on taste and the planet, and of course good nutrition underpins our approach.
We are providing micronutrients through fortification of our products, and increasing our ambition in reducing salt, sugar, saturated fat and calories. We engage in research and follow scientific developments so that they can be applied as new sugar, salt, saturated fat reduction technologies and solutions become available.
Our aim is to help people make the transition to healthier eating by providing positive nutrition. Foods that contain ‘positive nutrition’ are defined as products containing impactful amounts of vegetables, fruits, proteins, fibre, unsaturated fatty acids or micronutrients such as vitamins, zinc, iron and iodine.
We also work with the Government, Academia, NGOs and all food chain stakeholders to find the best solution which can positively impact public health.
Our innovation approach
To help fix our broken food system, serve consumers and grow our business sustainably at the same time, innovation is crucial. Our teams draw on insights from consumers, plus the best and brightest thinking from specialists inside and outside Unilever, to develop food and beverage products that enable people to choose healthier diets for themselves and the planet.
Science-based strategy and innovation
Our Future Foods strategy and our approach to innovation are based on the latest scientific understanding of the role of nutrition for good health and wellbeing.
We use this science to develop great-tasting products that meet the nutritional needs of our consumers and that deliver their health and wellbeing needs. We also use science to underpin all our nutrition commitments, claims and communications, and to help ensure that external guidelines, regulations and policies are based on the best science.
We seek to work with others and invite people to share knowledge and best practice through our Innovate with us portal.
Take our Unilever Nutrition Standards as an example
Science and dietary guidance underpin our Unilever Nutrition Standards and we have two standards that guide our portfolio improvement. The first is Unilever’s Science based Nutrition Criteria (USNC), which are intended to cap nutrients to limit in our products. The second is our Positive Nutrition Standards (PNS), which aim to increase dietary recommended nutrients and ingredients that consumers should eat more of, for their and the planet’s health.
Our standards tackle three key elements.
We’ve explained more about the science underpinning our standards in our Unilever Nutrition Standards (PDF 1.02 MB) booklet and road-tested them with external Global including Indian experts in nutrient profiling to ensure they’re robust.
We are also working with partners to incentivise reformulation at scale and enhance the impact on public health. Setting a new benchmark in nutrition transparency, in 2022, we were the first global food company to publicly disclose on the performance of our product portfolio against six externally endorsed Nutrient Profiling Models (PDF 231 KB). Now we are the first to disclose our portfolio for three consecutive years and we will continue to do this on an annual basis. We’re going further and advocating for industry-wide standard Nutrient Profiling Model(s) which every food company can use.
Science also underpins our claims, marketing and labelling
We’re careful to ensure we can fully support any claims we make. We first introduced our Unilever Nutrition and Health Claims Framework in 2005, providing guidance for nutrition and health claims on our products. Today, this framework ensures a solid scientific and legal basis for our claims, ensuring they are credible, compelling, differentiating and comply with regulatory requirements. We strive that all fortified products are in line with USNC and suitable vehicles for fortification as recommended by WHO.
We also comply with the call to action of the WHO and FSSAI to use iodized salt in all processed foods. We strive to have the lowest possible salt level (within taste and safety boundaries) in our products. Positive nutrition and fortified foods | Unilever
Our Claims Substantiation Committee provides governance, ensuring that the nutrition and health claims we make are underpinned by sound science. We use our USNC as guidance for nutrition and health claims and, if local regulations or voluntary industry standards are stricter than our Unilever Standards for nutrients to limit, we follow the stricter standard for any claims. Our global position on claims (PDF 107.24 KB) explains more.
We’re also committed to promoting healthy diets by marketing and advertising our nutritious products responsibly. We’re guided by our General Marketing Principles and our Principles on Responsible Food & Beverage Marketing to Children, Advertising and Marketing details our approach. Additionally, we are also signatories to local pledge such as India Policy on Marketing Communication to Children (Food & Beverage Alliance of India) and comply with CCPA Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements.
Our nutrition labelling policy and position covers our entire Nutrition and Ice Cream portfolios. It stipulates that we must provide key information on pack and adhere to the regulatory requirements as laid down in the FSSAI Claims & Advertising as well as Labelling & Display Regulations. We also take exceptional care to include accurate allergen information that complies with local regulations.
We support the implementation of front-of-pack labels.
Strong governance = high standards
To make sure we maintain our high standards, and that everything we do is based on leading-edge scientific evidence, it’s essential that we have a strong system of governance in place. Governance in nutrition (PDF 58.03 KB) sets out how we do this.
Strong governance structures and clear lines of accountability ensure we deliver our Future Foods commitments. When we consider acquiring new brands, such as Horlicks for example, we look at the fit of the portfolio against our nutrition standards.
We also draw on insights from external experts to challenge our thinking. For example, we asked external experts for their opinions on our Positive Nutrition Standards and the new Unilever Science-based Nutrition Criteria (USNC), which will replace our current Highest Nutritional Standards (HNS) from 2023.
We’ve modelled our new criteria against dietary surveys in five of our major markets. We’ve published the results of this modelling in a scientific journal, which show potential public health impacts in all of them. We continue to set product-specific standards, taking into account the role of the product, and we’re pleased that these were well received as they incentivise further reformulation. These external experts also complimented us on our leadership in product improvement.
A worldwide commitment
All our standards, positions, policies and commitments are applicable globally – for every brand, every business group and every region, unless a local regulation is stricter. That means whenever you buy a Unilever product, anywhere in the world, it was formulated in line with our strict policies and standards. Our nutrition standards, positions, policies, commitments, claims framework and marketing are all scrutinized and authorized by our senior leadership via our governance groups.
They are put into action by our Diet & Health Network (DHN), who are our nutrition experts at local, regional, and at a global level. The DHN works in cross-functional teams to do this, and we have robust processes in place that guide our activity in the areas of innovation, product renovation, roadmaps, programmes and activation campaigns.
In addition, we set annual individual and collective targets for our people, with bonuses depending on reaching these commitments (PDF 145.14 KB). For details of our long-term incentive plan, our Performance Share Plan, see Sustainability governance.
We’re working in partnership
To make a difference to the multifaceted problems the food system faces – not least changing people’s eating habits – we need to work together with governments, health authorities, academia, retailers, civil society, consumer pressure groups and the media.
This means working in partnership with others, and advocating for improvements to be made, backed by science.
We’re encouraging others to join us
We work with others to create a positive external environment within which we can grow responsibly and deliver our ambitions. This helps to give us the freedom to operate, shape the future, and be proactive in sharing our nutrition story and inspiring others in our industry to join us. Some of the key areas in which we do this are set out in our advocacy and policy asks below.
More plant-based options (Opens in new modal)
Our Compass goal sets out to reach €1.5bn of sales per annum by 2025 from plant-based products in categories whose products are traditionally using animal-derived ingredients.
More plant-based options (1 of 4)
Advocacy and policy asks
- Stop proposals that constrain the labelling of alternative proteins and protect denominations and repurpose public subsidies to promote more plant-based diets.
- Support for making plant-based foods mainstream, including investment in plant-based food innovation and direct public procurement of plant-based foods.
- No standards of identity that hamper the development of dairy/meat alternatives.
- Definitions for ‘plant-based’ and ‘100% plant-based’ that inspire consumer trust.
- ISO definitions for vegan and vegetarian as a blueprint for new legislation.
Plant-based/food diversification/food that’s better for the planet as an integral part of dietary guidelines
Positive nutrition (Opens in new modal)
Our Compass goal seeks to double the number of products sold that deliver positive nutrition by 2025.
Positive nutrition (2 of 4)
Advocacy and policy asks
- Creating a regulatory environment that is harmonized across regions with regard to the vehicles that are allowed for fortification, and the levels and types of fortificants.
- Creating an enabling environment where consumers can be informed about the benefits of fortified foods in consumer-friendly language.
- Educating consumers on the benefits of micronutrients for health and creating awareness of how they can achieve an adequate intake of micronutrients.
- Ensuring availability of data on micronutrient intake in order to develop effective and safe fortified foods.
Reducing calories, salt and sugar (Opens in new modal)
Through our Compass goals, we’re continuing to lower calories, salt and sugar across all our products.
Reducing calories, salt and sugar (3 of 4)
Advocacy and policy asks
- We want to work with governments to define best measures to address the challenge of obesity, diabetes and ‘overnutrition’.
- Science-based reformulation targets recognising that the nutritional quality determines the ‘healthiness’ of a product and not the level of processing.
- Reformulation targets to be aligned with Global WHO dietary guidelines for saturated fats, salt and sugar with maximum levels of these nutrients in products rather than % reduction targets, and with the incentives to create smaller portions.
- Food and beverage taxation that drives reformulation – with revenues targeted to address the challenge.
- Within regulated limits, free use of non-nutritive sweeteners to lower sugar and energy content of products.
- We support dietary recommendations and regulations that are based on scientific consensus. The healthiness of foods is determined by its nutritional quality, appropriate portion size and frequency of consumption. Therefore, the consumption of processed foods, in general, should not be discouraged by dietary recommendations and legislation
Responsible behaviour (Opens in new modal)
Our Compass goals are supported by our policy to provide nutrition transparency, as well as our expertise and experience in nutrient profiling.
Responsible behaviour (4 of 4)
Advocacy and policy asks
- Nutrition information on all products worldwide should be applied and align with CODEX (CAC/GL 2-1985) and with sector specific regulations such as those set forth by FSSAI in India, as consumers have a right to know the nutritional composition of what they buy and eat.
- Additional front-of pack (FOP) labelling should be embedded in integrated government programmes to stimulate healthy diets and lifestyles, supported by continuous consumer education, and effectiveness investigated and published in peer reviewed scientific journals.
- To incentivize reformulation and innovation to healthier products, nutrient profiling models (NPMs) should be based on product category specific standards (or based on regulated serving sizes) and not on generic standards per 100g/ml across all products.
- NPMs should reward reduction of serving size of those products that are meant to be for single serve consumption.
- We assess our portfolio against six external NPMs as there is not one definition of “healthy”. We urge other companies to show the same transparency and call for action to define one global NPM, or accept multiple external NPMs based on different types of algorithms to acknowledge different companies’ portfolios.
- Definition of “healthy” products used in one country for reformulation, FOP labelling, fiscal measures etc must be based on the same NPM, or at least be aligned.
- Ideally there would be one global NPM to assess the healthiness of food and beverage products. At a minimum, harmonisation across regions/ trade blocks is essential (to avoid consumer confusion and supply chain complexity).
Playing our part in change
We believe in global partnerships, as well as local and regional ones, to bring about change on the scale that’s needed.
Engaging with stakeholders explains more about our external engagement, including the trade associations to which we belong.
Downloads
Our Nutrition Improvement Journey: Accessible Version (PDF 180.84 KB)