Carrefour and Nestlé join forces on fruit and vegetable initiative for children

21 Feb 2020 --- Nestlé and Carrefour are joining forces to help parents get their children to adopt a healthier and more sustainable diets, promoting daily consumption of fruits and vegetables. The two companies have launched the “Adopt a Fruit, Adopt a Vegetable” initiative, which falls under the banner of the broader Nestlé for Healthier Kids and Carrefour Act for Food initiatives, each launched globally in 2018. Launching in Carrefour stores, the initiative offers parents and their children free fruits and vegetables, alongside recipes providing inspiration and cooking guidance.

In addition, the initiative promotes healthier products that contain whole grain, less sugar and salt, as well as organic and plant-based products. It will be launched across all Carrefour hypermarkets in France as of today, before being implemented in Argentina and Italy, as well as in other key markets for the two companies.

A commitment to healthy eating from early childhood on
The commitment to the healthy development of children goes back to the founding of the company, according to Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider. 

“In May 2018, we took our commitment to the next level with the global launch of Nestlé for Healthier Kids. We believe we have an important role to play in helping parents promote healthier habits. In 2019 alone, we launched more than 1,300 food and beverage products designed to meet children’s specific nutritional needs. The partnership with Carrefour will allow us to build greater awareness on the importance of eating varied and healthy meals – ones that include, among other things, more fruits and vegetables. It also offers helpful tools to support parents,” he explains. 

“As part of our Act for Food program, we are working on the quality of our products by continuously improving them, so that eating once again becomes a pleasure and is no longer a source of concern for our health,” notes Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour. 

“In 2019, we reviewed the recipes of 1,500 Carrefour-branded products and made a strong commitment to baby food, with the switch to 100 percent organic in the Carrefour baby range, eliminating artificial flavors and additives, controversial substances, reducing sugar and salt content and favouring local ingredients. By pooling our commitments with those of Nestlé, this partnership allows us to go even further to enable parents to offer their children a healthy and varied diet from their earliest age,” he comments. 

Nestlé and Carrefour are also committed to increasing the transparency and traceability of their products. The two companies recently announced the use of blockchain technology to provide consumers with traceability data on their Mousline purée and Guigoz baby milk products.

In addition, the two companies are early adopters of the front-of-the-pack Nutri-Score labeling scheme that provides parents with easy-to-understand nutritional information at a glance. The implementation of Nutri-Score started in January 2020.

Last November, NutritionInsight reported that Nestlé would roll out Nutri-Score nutrition labeling on its products in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland. The voluntary front-of-pack scheme classifies foods and beverages according to their nutritional profile. Cereal Partners Worldwide, the international breakfast venture between Nestlé and General Mills, will also implement Nutri-Score on its product packaging in the same countries. Nestlé hopes that Nutri-Score will support its goals of having one of the healthiest options in every product category it offers.

Edited by Elizabeth Green