The only way for food manufacturers to avoid media flak over health issues is to avoid token gestures and act with integrity, according to cereal company Kellogg community and social responsibility manager Bruce Learner.
Learner said it was "easy to have a pop" at big branded manufacturers in the wake of rising obesity levels, but such "hysteria" didn't make a positive contribution to the health debate.
However, manufacturers had to engage with the issues rather than make token gestures to keep the media off their backs, he stressed. "A token effort won't do. We could have stuck tokens on our packs saying, 'redeem this for a free swimming session'. All that does is provide a free swim for motivated people that already go swimming. Instead, we have worked with the Amateur Swimming Association to invest in schemes that actually get people who don't swim into the pool. We also follow things through to see if initiatives like this are really working.
"If you really want to make a difference, that's the only measure of success. If your aim is to change people's lives, rather than protect your own media profile, you have a far better chance of being taken seriously."
Learner said it was easy for a food company to get its fingers burned, as Cadbury did a couple of years ago by encouraging children to collect tokens from chocolate wrappers to buy sports kit for schools. "But the secret is to do something wholeheartedly, find a partner, talk to the experts and follow through."