Developing a policy for ‘natural’ for a UK retailer

Opportunity

A leading multinational food retailer asked us to generate their additive policy with the intention of creating policy on ‘natural’ for their UK stores; providing clarity in an otherwise grey area of legislation and promoting consumer friendly products without undesirable impacts on product quality & safety.

Approach

A team of regulatory experts and food scientists was deployed to provide an assessment of ‘natural’ landscape in the additive world across the UK and EU. In all, we evaluated nearly 400 additives, which allowed us to develop a coded system, capturing these into 3 categories. This significant step made communication to (and adoption by) suppliers and product developers much easier. Furthermore, the justification behind the database was shared in an on site workshop to ensure the knowledge was transferred and the work adopted in practice.

Result

The client was provided with an independent and evidence based policy that achieved a pragmatic balance between mandatory regulatory requirements and safe, quality and consumer friendly branded products. The searchable database has also enabled our client to take a more active approach to reducing artificial flavours and colours in their food without unnecessarily restricting options for their suppliers