Carrefour, Nestlé launch initiative for better health of children

25 / 02 / 2020

By Marwa Nassar - -

Carrefour and Nestlé launched a joint initiative “Adopt a Fruit, Adopt a Vegetable” in order to help parents get their children to adopt a healthier and more sustainable diet through daily consumption of fruits and vegetables.

The initiative falls under the banner of the broader Nestlé for Healthier Kids and Carrefour Act for Food initiatives, each launched worldwide in 2018.

Launching in Carrefour’s stores, the initiative offers parents and their children free fruits and vegetables, alongside recipes providing inspiration and cooking guidance.

The initiative also promotes healthier products that contain whole grain, less sugar and salt, as well as organic and plant-based products.

The initiative was launched across all Carrefour hypermarkets in France as of February 20, before being implemented in Argentina and Italy, as well as in other key markets for the two companies.

Carrefour, Nestlé committed to healthy food for children

Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour, declared: “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. 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% Organic in the Carrefour Baby range, eliminating artificial flavors and additives, controversial substances, reducing sugar and salt content and favoring local ingredients. By pooling our commitments with those of Nestlé Group, this partnership allows us to go even further to enable parents to offer a their children a healthy and varied diet from their earliest age.”

Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said: “Our commitment to the healthy development of children goes back to the founding of Nestlé. 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 1300 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.”

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 has started in January 2020.