Mars Food has started a global initiative called Health and Wellbeing Ambition to promote healthier food choices and healthier meal options among consumers.
The Health and Wellbeing Ambition will be rolled out over the next five years and will focus on five critical areas which include improving nutritional content, providing more nutrition information for consumers to make informed choices, encouraging consumers to cook and eat healthy meals with friends and family, identifying new formats and opportunities to offer products at affordable prices in more places.
Mars' initiative also aims to provide Mars Food Associates opportunities to improve wellbeing through nutrition education, cooking facilities, and healthier food options.
With these initiatives, Mars Food intends to encourage families to share one billion healthier meals across the world.
Mars Food, Drinks and Multisales global president Fiona Dawson said: "This Ambition advances our Purpose of creating Better Food Today and A Better World Tomorrow. As a busy mum myself, I know how tricky it can be to find healthy meals which everyone in the family will enjoy, and of course, they often need to be quick and easy to prepare.
"Our Nutrition Criteria sets a very high standard for our products, and we also want to help our consumers understand the difference between 'everyday' and 'occasional' products within a balanced diet."
Mars Food intends to help consumers differentiate between the choices they make with regards to their everyday and occasional options with this Health and Wellbeing Ambition program.
In order to fulfill its ambition through its products, Mars will provide guidance to consumers on-pack and on its website regarding how often one can have its meal offerings that contain higher salt or added sugar or fat content.
The company also plans to update Mars Foods website in the next few months providing a list of 'occasional' products, which are to be consumed once a week and a list of everyday products - those that can be had more frequently.
Mars Food plans to provide the list with products that need to be reformulated over the next five years to reduce sodium, sugar or fat.
Additionally, Mars Food will provide nutritional product composition through reduction of added sugar and sodium, with addition of vegetables and whole grains across its global portfolio.
To align with this criterion, Mars Food intends to reduce sodium by an average of 20% by 2021 and reduce added sugar in a limited number of sauces and light meals by 2018.
Also, Mars Foods plans to expand multi-grain food options in such a way that half of its rice products include whole grains or legumes. It is also planning to introduce a minimum of one serving of vegetables in all of its tomato-based jar products.
Fiona Dawson said: "The food industry has already made great strides in reducing sodium, but we have more work to do to help consumers reduce sodium intake. We support release of the U.S. FDA's draft sodium reduction guidance, because we believe it's important to begin a stakeholder dialogue about the role industry can play in this critical part of consumers' diets."
Image: Mars pledges to help consumers inculcate healthier eating habits. Photo: Courtesy of Mars, Incorporated and its Affiliates.