Improving the food supply by product reformulation: Using nutrient profiling to evaluate foods consumed in the USA
Authors: Mölenberg Famke , Vlassopoulos Antonis , Masset Gabriel , Lehmann Undine 
Published: November 2023

Background

Although both WHO and the European Union have identified product reformulation as a key mechanism to improve population diets, little has been done on how industry has used nutrient profiling to guide the reformulation of food and beverage portfolios. The Nestlé Nutrient Profiling System (NNPS) is a methodology to translate daily nutrient recommendations into product targets per serving as consumed. The binary outcome, a NNPS pass (YES) or fail (NO), is used to set standards for the reformulation of foods and beverages.

Objective

This study aims to apply the NNPS on foods commonly consumed in the USA in order to: i) assess the performance of the system on a USA food database and ii) provide insights on the potential improvements of the USA food supply if the NNPS targets would be applied.

Methods

The FNDDS (version 2011–2012) was used to identify foods commonly consumed in the USA. All foods were classified into NNPS product categories and energy and nutrient content per serving of each product were evaluated against category‐specific criteria (Table 1). Foods and beverages from 6 product categories were used: complete meals, pizza as center of plate, soups, cold cuts & spreads, yoghurts & fresh cheeses and juice‐based beverages. Serving size was determined according to the reference amounts customarily consumed (RACC). The NNPS is non‐compensatory and all criteria have to be fulfilled to obtain a NNPS pass. Descriptive statistics were used to report proportions of foods that pass per category and to identify limiting nutrients. To estimate the potential impact of the system's application on the food supply, nutrient values were set to the NNPS targets for all nutrients failing the NNPS targets. Average nutrient composition per category were compared with the original averages.

Results

Percentages of products that passed all NNPS criteria ranged between 8% and 50%, for cold cuts & spreads and juice‐based beverages respectively (Figure 1). The most challenging nutrient targets differed per category, with sodium for pizza as center of plate (42% pass), soups (53% pass) and cold cuts & spreads (16% pass); total fat for complete meals (59% pass); calcium for yoghurts & fresh cheeses (43% pass); and added sugars for juice‐based beverages (63% pass). When nutrient values for products failing the NNPS were compared with the NNPS targets, a potential for average reductions of 3.2%, 19.4%, 21.8%, 30.8% and 23.9% for energy (E), total fat (TF), saturated fatty acids (SFA), added sugar (AS) and sodium (Na), respectively, were shown for all categories combined (Figure 2).

Conclusions

The NNPS had good discriminatory power in the binary outcome for all assessed categories. The NNPS has the capacity to stimulate product reformulation, and if applied transversally it might lead to substantial reductions of total fat, saturated fat, added sugars and sodium content of the food supply in the USA. As the NNPS employs a per serving approach, a sensitivity analysis using different serving sizes, especially those derived from dietary intake surveys, could give a better estimation of the potential public health impact of the system. Applying the NNPS reformulation targets in other product categories and datasets should indicate the impact on changes in the food supply on a global scale.

Support or Funding Information

All authors were employed by Nestec SA

Overview of the 6 included NNPS categories and their nutritional targets per serving.

Nutrients to limit
Nutrients to encourage

NNPS category
E (kcal)
TF (g)
SFA (g)
AS (g)
Na (mg)
P (g)
Ca (mg)

Complete meals
600
23.3
10.0
37.5
960
18.0

Pizza as center of plate
400
10.5–17.8
3.5–7.8
5.0–10.0
792

Soups
200
5.3
1.5
2.5
792

Cold cuts & spreads
200
7.0
2.0
2.5
240

Yoghurts & fresh cheeses
200
5.3
3.0
12.5
240
6.0
280

Juice‐based beverages
200
3.5
1.0
0.5
120

Abbreviations: NNPS: Nestlé Nutrient Profiling System; E: energy; TF: total fat; SFA: saturated fatty acids; AS: added sugar; Na: sodium; P: protein; Ca: calcium.