These reductions are in line with recommendations that the World Health Organisation see as being important in human health.
“As an industry, we have always supported public health recommendations and we’ve been providing good quality low-fat options for a long time,” said Bryans. “Consumption of skimmed and semi-skimmed milk has been on the rise for more than 30 years. And the move towards lower fat milk has taken another major step forward recently with the launch of new varieties containing less than 1% fat.
“Cheesemakers have already removed a substantial amount of salt from their products and are busy developing new brands with lower fat content. It’s important for those making recommendations to bear in mind that there is only so much salt that can be removed from food before food safety is affected.
“We’ve been promoting food responsibly, supported by the EU, for years. For example, as an industry, we’ve promoted low-fat milk to schoolchildren through the EU School Milk Scheme, and we’re running two EU-funded campaigns – ‘Make Mine Milk’ and ‘Milk in Action’ – both of which promote low-fat milk to different groups of young people.
“The dairy industry is committed to helping achieve the government’s goals in improving public health and ensuring that consumers can make the informed choices they need to suit their diets.
“As one of the stakeholders who took part in the ‘Nice’ consultation, we’re supportive of measures that improve public health, but were surprised that Nice has chosen to release recommendations in areas where government agencies already have initiatives under way.”
Source: The Dairy Council
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024