Toddler foods slip through the net, claims Babylicious

Foods aimed at toddlers may be unsafe because manufacturers do not have appropriate nutritional guidelines to follow, a leading manufacturer of babyfood products has claimed.

Babylicious md Sally Preston said that, in the absence of specific guidance on toddler nutrition, weaning guidance enshrined in the EU Processed Cereal-based Foods and Baby Foods for Infants and Young Children Regulations - which currently applies to baby food and specific weaning foods, should also apply to foods for toddlers.

However, the Food Standards Agency disagreed: "Government advice is that toddlers do not need special foods after they have been weaned." Preston, who has a background in food science, argued that toddler food was not mini-adult food. “I am surprised and disappointed that the FSA has taken the stance that toddler food need not comply with the weaning Regulation. I can only assume that the FSA is quite happy for toddlers to be fed salt, azo dyes, preservatives, and fat, as the whole area of toddler food is not controlled by legislation.”

Retailers were also adding to the confusion, added Preston, who has a background in food science. “The consumer marketing [around toddler food] is incredibly misleading in this country. The FSA has a role to play, and it is not playing it.”

Preston also accused retailers of deliberately “conning” parents into buying food, which was not suitable for toddlers. The weaning Regulation concerned children aged up to 36 months and was very onerous, she said. “In order to avoid these strict rules, retailers simply design kids’ ranges for ages four and up.” But she believes they purposely avoid printing a suitable age on pack, in order to open up sales to toddlers, even though the food products may not be safe for them.

“There is terribly misleading marketing in the children’s meal market at the moment and I think a lot of companies have made commercial gain out of this. A lot of retailer own-label children’s products deliberately do not put an age on foods to confuse mothers. If you leave the age off the packaging and you put nice little cartoon pictures on, you can con parents into believing that food is suitable for children aged anywhere between one and 10. Parents are crying out for education on toddler nutrition."

Asda has not printed an age range on its Great Stuff kids’ range, which is aimed at two to nine-year-old children, but a spokesman claims: “it complies with any relevant regulations”