How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food
- 7 years ago
How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food
In an interview at Nestlé’s new $50 million campus in suburban Cleveland, Mr. Westcott, head of food research
and development, said the door-to-door sales program reflected another of the company’s slogans: “Creating shared values.”
“We create shared value by creating micro-entrepreneurs — people that can build their own businesses,” he said.
But of the 800 products that Nestlé says are available through its vendors, Mrs. da Silva says her customers are mostly interested in only about two dozen of them, virtually all sugar-sweetened items like Kit-Kats; Nestlé Greek Red Berry, a 3.5-ounce cup of yogurt with 17 grams of sugar; and Chandelle Pacoca, a peanut-flavored pudding in a container the same size as the yogurt
that has 20 grams of sugar — nearly the entire World Health Organization’s recommended daily limit.
“Everyone here knows that Nestlé products are good for you,” she said, gesturing to cans of Mucilon, the infant cereal whose label says it is “packed with calcium
and niacin,” but also Nescau 2.0, a sugar-laden chocolate powder.
Nestlé, he said, strives to educate consumers about proper portion size and to make and market foods that balance “pleasure and nutrition.”
There are now more than 700 million obese people worldwide, 108 million of them children,
according to research published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“On one hand, Nestlé is a global leader in water and infant formula
and a lot of dairy products,” said Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina.
“When he was a baby, my son didn’t like to eat — until I started giving him Nestlé foods,” she said proudly.
In an interview at Nestlé’s new $50 million campus in suburban Cleveland, Mr. Westcott, head of food research
and development, said the door-to-door sales program reflected another of the company’s slogans: “Creating shared values.”
“We create shared value by creating micro-entrepreneurs — people that can build their own businesses,” he said.
But of the 800 products that Nestlé says are available through its vendors, Mrs. da Silva says her customers are mostly interested in only about two dozen of them, virtually all sugar-sweetened items like Kit-Kats; Nestlé Greek Red Berry, a 3.5-ounce cup of yogurt with 17 grams of sugar; and Chandelle Pacoca, a peanut-flavored pudding in a container the same size as the yogurt
that has 20 grams of sugar — nearly the entire World Health Organization’s recommended daily limit.
“Everyone here knows that Nestlé products are good for you,” she said, gesturing to cans of Mucilon, the infant cereal whose label says it is “packed with calcium
and niacin,” but also Nescau 2.0, a sugar-laden chocolate powder.
Nestlé, he said, strives to educate consumers about proper portion size and to make and market foods that balance “pleasure and nutrition.”
There are now more than 700 million obese people worldwide, 108 million of them children,
according to research published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“On one hand, Nestlé is a global leader in water and infant formula
and a lot of dairy products,” said Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina.
“When he was a baby, my son didn’t like to eat — until I started giving him Nestlé foods,” she said proudly.