Fourteen food industry heavyweights including Nestlé, Kellogg and Mars have pledged to use responsible advertising and marketing to children in Singapore.
The Responsible Advertising to Children Pledge is the first of its kind in Singapore, according to Food Industry Asia, a local industry association. Companies will agree to only advertise products that meet agreed nutritional criteria to children under 12 years of age, or not at all.
Individual company commitments will also come into effect on 1 January and regular independent monitoring will be published to demonstrate compliance.
The World Federation of Advertisers welcomed the development.
"This type of self-regulation, where companies make clear and measurable commitments and follow them up with independent third-party monitoring, is shown to have led to a tangible and sizeable reduction in children's exposure to the marketing of certain food types," said director of communications Will Gilroy.
A similar pledge was made in India in 2010 and in Europe, an EU Pledge was signed in 2007 by 11 of the world's largest food companies.
