Subsidies for snack manufacturers

I saw an article on this on The Guardian website. Here's an extract.

"Snack food and confectionery companies, including Nestlé and PepsiCo, are paid substantial government subsidies to help them make products that will damage the nation’s health, according to charities involved in heart attack prevention and obesity.
Mondelez, which split from Kraft and owns the Cadbury’s brand, was given nearly £638,000 by Innovate UK – formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board – from 2013 to 2015 to help the multinational giant develop a process to distribute nuts and raisins more regularly in its chocolate bars.
Nestlé received more than £487,000 to invent an energy-efficient machine for making chocolate, while PepsiCo was awarded £356,000 to help develop new ways of drying potatoes and vegetables to make crisps.
The Coronary Prevention Group, in association with the World Obesity Federation, says government money should not be spent on initiatives that will produce unhealthy snack foods and worsen the country’s serious obesity and disease problems."

This seems very wrong to me. We have an obesity problem in this country which is affecting peoples health and straining resources within the NHS and our government is giving subsidies to these companies.
At a time when many of us are suffering the effects of cutbacks you'd think they might find a better way of spending our money!

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

I agree with you .

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

Another load of headline grabbing rubbish from what must have been a slow news day.

Devising a better way of making a snack bar , saving energy and improving manufacturing processes does not equate to 'Damaging the Nation's health'! Do you honestly think that people will rush out to buy more chocolate because it is made in an 'energy saving' way?

The amount of money involved is 'small change' in comparison to the reported £Billions wasted in the NHS. Perhaps they should get their own house in order first.

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

It may well have been a slow news day but as far as I'm concerned it's a valid piece of reporting. I had no idea that the food industry were getting such subsidies.

Sure, billions gets wasted within the NHS but that's no excuse for the government to be positively encouraging "snacking" through subsidy when obesity is such a drain on resources. IMO.

And I particularly don't like it in view of the austerity imposed on people due to the supposed lack of government cash.

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

I disagree. The problem is a total lack of awareness of what is really going on in the world and a total mis-placed faith and dependency on "the system" by the majority of the masses. They can scarce even entertain the faintest notion that mega-corporations are out to keep our lifespans short and to keep us enslaved in that short life. Instead they swallow willingly the authority of the "institution", the so-called scientific data telling them to eat this, eat that to better their health when in fact all they are doing is killing themselves and filling corporate coffers at the same time.

Snack foods are a minor threat in this situation. More important is the water supply, the labelling laws which conveniently hide the truth of what you are actually consuming, the chemicals being put into foods or being used to process foods without your knowledge and the prevelance of what is little more than the legalised drug dealing of sugar and salt, both addictive killers.

I wonder what will it take for simple people to wake up and see the world for what it really is?

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

My husband fills snack vending machines for a living, they experiment every couple of years with healthier snacks hoping to get people interested. Usually after they have thrown all the out of date stuff out and fielded calls from disgruntled customers asking what the eff are they doing, where are their snickers and doritos etc
You can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink.

So if they can make the stuff with less impact on the environment or dry the potatoes in an more efficient way then go for it we say.

People wanting healthy snacks tend to bring stuff in from home - put it in company fridges and eat out the snack machines we find.

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

I'm gobsmacked to hear of someone who doesn't think we have an obesity problem!

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

Snack food and confectionery companies, including Nestlé and PepsiCo, are paid substantial government subsidies to help them make products.

1. Mondelez, which split from Kraft and owns the Cadbury’s brand, was given nearly £638,000 by Innovate UK – formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board – from 2013 to 2015 to help the multinational giant develop a process to distribute nuts and raisins more regularly in its chocolate bars.

Product development surely should be a R & D charge born by the company

2 Nestlé received more than £487,000 to invent an energy-efficient machine for making chocolate, while PepsiCo was awarded £356,000 to help develop new ways of drying potatoes and vegetables to make crisps.

This again should be a R & D charge as any energy saving should result in a reduced cost benefit to the Company.

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

Abolish manufactured snacks, we don't need them . When we were little there was no eating between meals except for fruit.
People never seem to stop eating these days.

Re: Subsidies for snack manufacturers

Well, obesity itself is not the problem. People don't set out to make themselves 20+ stone nor do most want or like to be that size. Their condition is the result of a different set of problems. Problems associated with the crap being put into all of our foods which ought not to be in them, problems associated with the ruling bodies (like the FDA) controlling things to be that way, problems associated with hooky labelling of products, again, allowed and supported by the ruling bodies.

Obese people are typically miserable, feel helpless, have low self-esteem and sometimes hate themselves because they believe it's their fault for eating all the food.

The truth is that in many cases it is not their fault. It is the chemicals, sugar content, salt content and other contributors in what seem like simple harmless products that actually screws with the body's functions and creates endless food cravings. Many years ago the Atkins diet was all the rage but it got bad press because it wasn't clear how it actually worked, people were genuinely puzzled, it shouldn't have worked and yet it seemed to work nevertheless. Scientific analysis eventually revealed that the food in the diet was simply "filling people up" such that they did not feel hungry and as a result they just ate less food than before. Hence they lost weight.

It's all about waking up to the reality of what the big corporations are doing to the nation, deliberately. People need to be aware, start to do the research into what is actually in all the foodstuffs and then take action to make sure they only eat and drink decent stuff, as far as is possible. That means kicking the soft fizzy drinks, kicking most or all forms of refined sugar, reducing salt and generally being wary and alert, carefully reading ingredient labels and so on.

The problem is education, not obesity.