At the 2014 Consumer Goods Forum today, Fareed Zakaria of CNN interviewed Nestlé's CEO Paul Bulcke and Ahold's Dick Boer about healthy eating, and the pressure on supermarket chains to stock healthier products.
Childhood obesity, a topic introduced by Peter Freedman earlier in the day, is to be further tackled, Bulcke and Boer agreed, by better labelling of products: improving the world's health is one of the "pillars" of this year's summit.
Ahold has already taken great steps in displaying the number of calories in products on the front of packets, said its chief executive to those gathered at the summit.
It was the joint opinion of the two interviewees, however, that encouraging healthy eating by retailers must be done in conjunction with better and increased health education worldwide, as the West's lifestyle has become a sedentary one.
Bulcke stated, "We must work for the health of society – not just short-term interest."
Jamie Oliver, the chef, restaurateur and activist, echoed these sentiments, and praised Australia for the manner in which its companies and government work together to provide a high standard of gastronomic pedagogy.
Oliver went on to say that not offering good food-education is "a form of child abuse".
© 2014 - European Supermarket Magazine by Peter Donnelly in Paris
