Are Canada's Food Companies Getting Better?

The average Canadian's food choices are shaped by the companies that prepare and provide food to retail chains. In recent years, there has been pressure on Canadian companies to reformulate products; that is, to make products more nutritious and less reliant on chemicals.

This recently published study followed the results after companies made voluntary pledges to reform their products. However the results were disappointing. Most companies did not show a great improvement in the quality of the food offerings after pledging support to the prospect.

It seems that reporting simply claiming to support voluntary product (re) formulation actions did not correspond with improvements in the healthfulness of Canada’s leading packaged food and beverage products. This suggests that Canada needs stronger mandatory government interventions if they want to substantially improve the healthfulness of the food supply.