Today we launch a new Commercial Baby Food Review, which reflects a shared commitment to strengthen standards in a market that shapes children’s diets from the earliest months. By aligning evidence, policy development and parent engagement within a single programme, the partnership aims to support practical improvements that make it easier for families to follow public health guidance and give their children the best start in life.
Dayna Brackley, Partner at Bremner & Co and one of the founding partners behind the Commercial Baby Food Review, spoke to Dr Vicky Sibson, Director of First Steps Nutrition Trust, about why a new programme is putting the baby food industry on notice.
Vicky, for those less familiar with this issue, why does the commercial baby food market require focused policy attention?
There are longstanding issues with the baby and toddler food retail offer.
Many products contain too much sugar or salt and lack other nutrients, meaning they don’t meet the nutritional requirements of the babies and toddlers who are being given them. The sweet taste and their smooth, melty textures don’t align with public health recommendations for young children, who need exposure to a range of flavours and textures to cultivate healthy food preferences and support development.
From a marketing perspective, widespread use of nutrition and implied health claims, like ‘no added sugar’, ‘no nasties’ or ‘only good stuff’, mislead parents into thinking products are healthy and appropriate choices when they are not. Products also use misleading names that don’t reflect the balance of ingredients, which usually favour sweet fruits and vegetables.
Commercial baby foods come in spouted pouches without necessary labelling advice not to suck from the spout, potentially damaging new teeth. And the majority of pouches are labelled for use from four months of age, when babies are not meant to be introduced to foods until around six months. These sugary, sweet smoothies displace usual milk feeds.
All of this matters because products from the baby aisle are cupboard staples for most UK families, contributing significantly to young children’s diets from a very young age. Their inadequacies are undoubtedly driving poor health outcomes, including dental decay and excess weight gain, with long-term consequences for children’s health.
Poverty and cost of living pressures are central to the context families are living in. How does the commercial baby food market interact with those pressures?
Families across all socio-economic groups buy products from the baby food aisle. Commercial baby food is ubiquitous.
There is evidence that food insecure mothers may be more likely to use commercial baby foods like pouches than those who are food secure. They are very expensive compared to the cost of their constituent raw ingredients, but are perceived as convenient and nutritious.
Important research from Leeds University revealed the tendency for lower cost products to be sweeter and more heavily marketed than more expensive equivalents. Marketing capitalises on parents’ lived experience, including time pressures, stressing convenience and the equivalence of shop-bought products with healthy home-prepared alternatives, when this is not the case. Constrained budgets are wasted on products that are unnecessary and should actually be avoided, like snacks marketed for babies under twelve months.
Product placement and promotion in store and online is known to influence consumer purchasing decisions, though as far as we know there has been no focused research on this in relation to commercial baby and toddler foods. This is an area the Review wants to investigate further.
When you talk about reform, what does meaningful change look like in practice?
The new voluntary commercial baby food guidance is a step in the right direction. But it lacks an accountability framework, it is not stringent enough compared to WHO standards, and without stronger action progress will stall.
We are seeking regulatory reform that is genuinely fit for purpose: including new, more stringent limits on sugar and salt, stricter rules on labelling and marketing, and an end to labelling baby foods for use from four months when the recommendation is to start solids at around six months.
The Review will undertake a baseline and endline assessment of the market to evaluate whether industry actually implements the voluntary guidelines. That evidence will directly inform our case for mandatory reform, including alignment with the WHO Europe Nutrient and Promotion Profile Model, a strict and comprehensive framework that would address the widespread problems with the nutrition composition and marketing of commercial baby and toddler foods.
Stronger regulations will also mean nothing unless enforcement improves. That is part of what we are pushing for too.
The Commercial Baby Food Review has been deliberately structured as a partnership programme. Can you explain how it is organised and why that matters?
The Review has been built around complementary expertise and made possible by Impact on Urban Health, whose funding has enabled the partnership to scale up and formalise what had previously been voluntary, informal coordination into a structured two-year programme. First Steps Nutrition Trust brings years of experience exposing the inadequacies of the commercial baby food market and provides the scientific and nutritional backbone of the programme. The Obesity Health Alliance leads on parliamentary influencing and direct engagement with government, ensuring the case for reform lands where it needs to. Bremner & Co shapes strategy, narrative and partnership alignment, keeping the programme coherent and joined up. And the evidence that will hold industry to account comes from Planeatry Alliance and Leeds University, who are conducting a rigorous baseline and endline assessment of the market against both the voluntary guidelines and WHO standards, with Sustain’s Children’s Food Campaign ensuring the voices of parents, particularly those from the most disadvantaged families, sit at the heart of what the Review finds.
The Review will also reach out to peer organisations and experts to form a wider Commercial Baby Food Review Network, pooling knowledge and aligning efforts, supported by an independent Expert Advisory Group providing scientific and legal oversight.