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Voluntary initiatives by the food and beverage industry have been proposed by policy makers and industry stakeholders as one strategy for improving population-level nutrition(1–5). From a public health perspective, voluntary industry initiatives may be attractive for several reasons. They may be more achievable than government measures, which can be hampered by pressure from interest groups, political gridlock and bureaucratic inertia, and may allow to achieve public health objectives quicker, more efficiently and less intrusively than governmental regulation(6). From an industry perspective, a number of motives for engaging in such initiatives may exist, including: contributing to socially desirable ends; creating publicity for the brand and goodwill among stakeholders; framing the public debate to align it with company goals; creating tactical disagreements among potential critics; and preventing binding government regulation and fiscal measures, among others(3–5,7,8).
Against this background, several large European food retailing chains have announced voluntary nutrition initiatives(9–11). Food retailing chains play an important role in population-level nutrition. In most high-income countries they are the most important source of foods and beverages consumed by the population, and can influence consumption through decisions on stocking, pricing and promotions(12–14). Moreover, with their bargaining power over manufacturers and their range of own-brand products they can impact the upstream food production system(12,14).
For the present case study, we selected a major European food retailer with a relatively comprehensive publicly available nutrition strategy and used the approach recommended by the private-sector module of the INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity Research, Monitoring and Action Support) food environment monitoring framework to analyse its scope and content(15–17).
Methods
Analytical framework
A number of frameworks have been proposed for the analysis of food industry initiatives in the field of nutrition and health(5,8,18–23). We used the INFORMAS food environment monitoring framework(24). The INFORMAS framework has been developed by an international expert group based on reviews of the available evidence and is,...