Globally, unhealthy diets, obesity and related non-communicable diseases are the leading contributors to poor health(Reference Afshin1). In Australia, as in most high- and middle-income countries, unhealthy diets have largely been driven by food environments that are dominated by unhealthy foods that are available widely, relatively inexpensive and heavily marketed(Reference Swinburn, Kraak and Allender2).
A comprehensive societal approach, with strong government action and widespread industry efforts, is needed to improve the healthiness of food environments and population diets(Reference White, Aguirre and Finegood3). However, government actions on nutrition globally fall well short of recommendations(Reference Vandevijvere, Barquera and Caceres4), with many countries relying heavily on voluntary industry initiatives to improve population diets. In Australia, for example, industry participation in the government’s Healthy Food Partnership Reformulation Program (which sets risk nutrient limits in some food categories) and the Health Star Rating (HSR) front-of-package labelling scheme are optional. Australian standards regarding the exposure of children to unhealthy food marketing are also largely self-regulated by industry. In Australia and globally, major food companies have limited implementation of recommended actions to address obesity and improve population nutrition(Reference Sacks, Robinson and Cameron5,Reference Van Dam, Guillon and Robinson6) .
Corporations, including those in the food sector, use corporate sustainability reporting to publicly communicate risks, opportunities and their progress towards goals related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and to meet regulatory reporting requirements. Various parties use ESG information, including investors, governments, ESG data and ratings providers and civil society groups. Investors, for example, rely on ESG data to inform business decision-making and risk management. Various tools exist to guide businesses on the disclosure of their ESG performance, including reporting frameworks and standards (e.g. Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)), guidelines (e.g. Value Reporting Foundation) and ranking tools (e.g. Dow Jones Sustainability Index). However, few include comprehensive nutrition-related measures for the food sector(Reference Robinson, Chan and O’Hearn7).
In recent years, several civil society-led benchmarking initiatives have been developed as part of efforts to improve food industry accountability on nutrition. Using criteria-based measures, these tools provide repeated, independent monitoring of food company commitments and performance on nutrition, as well as other areas such as environmental sustainability. Prominent global initiatives include assessments conducted by the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI)(8) and the World Benchmarking Alliance(9), while country-specific indexes include the Plating Up Progress initiative (led by the Food Foundation, UK)(10) and the BIA-Obesity (Business Impact Assessment – obesity and population nutrition) tool (led by INFORMAS – International Network for Food and Obesity/Non-Communicable Disease Research, Monitoring and Action Support)(Reference Sacks, Vanderlee and Robinson11). In Australia, the BIA-Obesity tool has been applied in 2018 and 2024 to assess food company disclosure of nutrition-related policies and practices in Australia(Reference Sacks, Robinson and Cameron5,Reference Sacks, Chan and Gaucher-Holm12) .
Among the many established tools and initiatives related to food company disclosure of various sustainability issues, there are no standardised methodologies or reporting metrics. As a result, there is widespread inconsistency in how food companies measure and disclose their performance related to nutrition, with inconsistency in reporting cited as a key barrier to comparing companies(Reference Robinson, Chan and O’Hearn7,Reference O’Hearn, Reedy and Robinson13) . Existing reporting metrics related to nutrition have also been found to largely focus on company commitments rather than outputs or performance, lack clear definitions of key terms (such as affordability or product healthiness) and do not encompass key sectors of the food industry (e.g. the restaurant sector)(Reference O’Hearn, Reedy and Robinson13). This has led to calls to develop and adopt evidence-based corporate reporting metrics for nutrition that are meaningful and measurable(Reference Robinson, Chan and O’Hearn7,Reference O’Hearn, Reedy and Robinson13–Reference Bradbury, Mackay and Sacks15) .
While there have been some efforts to reach a consensus on food business reporting metrics on nutrition, this work is currently limited to businesses operating in the UK(16,17) . Critically, reporting metrics need to align with the specific policy context/s to ensure they link with existing government policies and initiatives related to nutrition and address the specific nutrition priorities of the population(Reference White, Aguirre and Finegood3). To our knowledge, there are currently no initiatives in progress to define evidence-based food company reporting metrics for companies operating in Australia.
Hence, we aimed to propose a set of reporting metrics related to nutrition and obesity prevention for Australian food companies, based on best-practice reporting principles and national population nutrition priorities. We also sought to explore the feasibility of the implementation of the proposed metrics for food companies operating in Australia.
Methods
Overview and scope
The study’s scope included food company actions related to the prevention of obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases, focusing on improvements to population nutrition. Actions related to food insecurity, undernutrition, food safety, environmental sustainability (including food waste), workplace nutrition (such as employee wellness) and physical activity were excluded.
We focused on metrics relevant to major food companies in Australia across three industry sectors: packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers, supermarkets and quick-service restaurants. Publicly listed companies were the main intended user, due to their requirements to publicly disclose various types of information to their shareholders and the public (including sustainability information, in some contexts). However, the metrics are likely relevant to companies with different ownership structures, which are interested in disclosing nutrition-related information to internal or external parties.
Development involved three stages (described further below): (1) reviewing current reporting frameworks and relevant literature to collate nutrition-related recommendations, metrics and principles of best-practice reporting; (2) adapting existing recommendations into reporting metrics; and (3) interviews with food industry representatives to understand considerations related to implementation.
Reviewing existing frameworks, initiatives and literature
Academic and grey literature (June 2013 to June 2023) was searched to identify current guidance, potential gaps and examples of existing industry practice in nutrition-related reporting at the food company level. Scopus and Google Scholar databases were searched with terms including ‘food retailer’, ‘food manufacturer’, ‘fast food’ or ‘quick service’ or ‘chain restaurant’ and ‘corporate’ or ‘business’; ‘nutrition’ or ‘health’; ‘indicators’, ‘performance’, ‘reporting’ or ‘benchmarking’. The grey literature review included relevant reports from international organisations (such as the WHO), prominent food industry benchmarking tools, business reporting frameworks and industry-led initiatives related to nutrition. Relevant frameworks and initiatives were supplemented with direct searches for initiatives using the Google search engine.
Frameworks, standards, reports and tools were included if they presented recommendations, methodology or specific metrics on how to disclose and/or assess food company policies and actions relevant to nutrition at the global or Australian level and were written in English.
An electronic inventory was used to extract information from each of identified documents on (where relevant): framework or initiative information (type of framework or tool, applicable sector/s, targeted audience); underpinning nutrient or food classification system used to define product or brand healthiness (or related guidance, if provided); guiding principles for reporting; nutrition-relevant measures of food company policies or actions; and performance metrics. The term ‘metric’ was considered to refer to specific measures for quantifying or describing company activities in a particular area. In corporate reporting, the term ‘metric’ is often used interchangeably with the term ‘indicator’.
Within the inventory, company actions on nutrition and associated reporting metrics were categorised into domains based on the focus areas of well-established frameworks (including WHO, UNICEF and INFORMAS)(8,9,Reference Sacks, Vanderlee and Robinson11,18–Reference Sacks, Swinburn and Kraak20) , which encompass recommended actions for the private sector outlined in key WHO publications(19,21) . The five domains included ‘corporate strategy’ (including disclosure of external relationships and lobbying), ‘product formulation’, ‘nutrition labelling and information’, ‘promotion practices’ and ‘product accessibility and affordability’. Good practice examples of existing food company reporting were also extracted from the literature identified in the review.
Developing proposed reporting principles, recommendations and proposed reporting metrics
From the inventory, recommendations and proposed reporting metrics were consolidated through an iterative process involving discussion amongst the research team, who have extensive experience in assessing food company nutrition-related actions in Australia and globally(Reference Sacks, Robinson and Cameron5,Reference Robinson, Chan and O’Hearn7,Reference Sacks, Vanderlee and Robinson11) . These discussions involved drawing on the best-practice principles identified in the literature and tailoring proposed metrics to the Australian nutrition policy context by considering current government national policies and population health priorities (namely, the Australian Dietary Guidelines, the National Preventive Health Strategy, the National Obesity Strategy, the HSR labelling system and the Healthy Food Partnership(22–26)).
In focus areas where there were no existing reporting metrics identified in the literature, relevant recommendations from the literature were adapted into proposed metrics. Where relevant, proposed metrics were tailored to each of the three food industry sectors. For example, in the area of nutrition labelling, metrics related to on-package labelling for food manufacturers and food retailers were adjusted to refer to menu labelling for restaurants. From the full set of proposed metrics, a subset of priority metrics was selected, based on their perceived importance and alignment with the key reporting principles.
Interviews with food company representatives
Industry perspectives on the feasibility of reporting the proposed metrics were sought through interviews with representatives from fifteen Australian food companies (thirteen food and beverage manufacturers, two quick-service restaurants). Interviews were conducted as part of a broader study that assessed the effectiveness of providing tailored nutrition support to major food manufacturers and quick-service restaurants in Australia and New Zealand(Reference Ni Mhurchu, Sacks and Haliburton27). All companies signed written organisational-level consent forms to participate in the study, including for written notes to be taken in study-related meetings.
Each food company was invited to an individual online meeting (averaging 60 min, conducted between July and August 2022) on the topic of nutrition policy and corporate sustainability reporting and was requested to nominate representatives within their companies to participate in the meeting. Representatives were typically in roles related to nutrition, quality assurance, product development or marketing, largely in management or executive-level roles. In each meeting, the research team (including lead author and senior author) presented representatives with an overview of nutrition-relevant business reporting initiatives, a summary of the proposed recommendations and metrics for their sector and best-practice examples of existing company reporting. Representatives were invited to comment on their company’s current nutrition-related reporting practices, perspectives on the proposed metrics and the practicality of reporting on the proposed metrics. Meetings were not audio-recorded to allow for more open discussion. Data from the meetings were collected through in-depth written notes (including verbatim quotes) taken by the meeting facilitators.
The Content, Context, Process (CCP) framework(Reference Pettigrew and Whipp28), an organisational change theory, guided the interview questions (see Appendix A) and the analytical approach. The framework was considered suitable as the interviews sought to explore company representative perceptions of the proposed metrics (the content), the practicality of implementing company reporting of the metrics (the process) and any contextual factors that may impact the sustained adoption of the metrics (the context).
The lead author (who conducted each meeting) deductively analysed the meeting notes to identify key themes, using a coding framework based on the CCP framework, and openness to emerging themes. The themes were then discussed with the senior author (also present at each interview) and refined before being iteratively discussed with other members of the research team (co-authors). Data were managed in NVivo 12 (IQR International software).
Results
Existing frameworks, initiatives and literature
The review identified six major civil society-led benchmarking initiatives, three business reporting frameworks, four industry or investor-led initiatives and several relevant key documents from non-government organisations. Two peer-reviewed articles were found, one of which proposed business reporting metrics on nutrition. Table 1 summarises frameworks, initiatives and articles identified in the review.
Nutrition-related frameworks, initiatives, articles and documented identified in the literature review
ATNI, Access to Nutrition Initiative; INFORMAS, International Network for Food and Obesity/Non-communicable Diseases Research; BIA-Obesity, Business Impact Assessment–Obesity.
Recommended best-practice reporting principles
Based on the existing literature, we identified nine key principles that could be applied to nutrition reporting: transparent, accountable, comparable, independently verified, aligned with public health priorities, standardised, coherent, comprehensive and specific and locally relevant (Table 2).
Recommended best-practice principles for food company reporting on nutrition
Recommended actions and proposed reporting metrics
Within each domain, there was a large variety of recommendations and metrics identified from each of the frameworks, tools and existing literature. From these, we devised forty recommendations and forty-one associated reporting metrics (thirty quantitative, eleven qualitative), including five priority metrics. In line with the best-practice reporting principles, quantitative metrics were generally preferred to maximise comparability and specificity, with qualitative metrics adopted where they could provide greater context on the extent of company action.
Refer to Table 3 for the proposed metrics, which are described by domain below (see Appendix A–E for full details on recommendations and metrics by domain and Appendix F for a detailed inventory of good practice examples).
Proposed nutrition-related reporting metrics for food companies operating in Australia
ATNI, Access to Nutrition Initiative; BIA-Obesity, Business Impact Assessment–Obesity; FSANZ, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand; AANA, Australian Association of National Advertisers.
Bolded text with asterisk (*): Indicates priority metrics for food company reporting on nutrition.
Following the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children are defined as those aged under 18 years.
†For retailers, this refers to own-brand products.
Underpinning classification of product healthiness
For corporate nutrition reporting, we identified that only some existing frameworks and standards used food classification or nutrient profiling systems to underpin their metrics, despite consistent recommendations for companies to adopt a government-endorsed product healthiness classification criteria(Reference O’Hearn, Reedy and Robinson13). For Australia, examples of evidence-based, government-aligned criteria to define product healthiness include the HSR, the Australian Dietary Guidelines (‘core’ and ‘discretionary’ food groups) and the Nutrient Profiling Scoring Criterion that underpins existing regulations for health claims. Other international schemes that could, in theory, be applied to the Australian context include, amongst others, the UK Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) and Nutri-Score. We noted that none of the available schemes were specifically designed to monitor and compare the healthiness of company product portfolios (potentially consisting of a diverse set of products spanning multiple product categories), including changes over time.
For this study, the HSR was proposed as the classification system to underpin the proposed metrics. The rationale for proposing the HSR was that it underpins the Australian government-endorsed front-of-package labelling scheme and is highly contextualised to Australia. In addition, the HSR has been used to describe the healthiness of individual products and food categories in both relative terms (‘healthier’ or ‘less healthy’, given HSR’s continuous ten-point spectrum) and binary terms (healthy or unhealthy), thus providing flexibility for use across a wide range of metrics. For this study, a cut-off of 3·5 health stars and above was used to define ‘healthy’ products, as this has been found to have relatively strong alignment with the Australian Dietary Guidelines(Reference Dunford, Cobcroft and Thomas45). The 3·5 star cut-off and mean HSR values have also been used extensively in other published evaluations to compare foods, categories and company portfolios(8,32) . The HSR was also found by a recent international Delphi study (including investors, academic experts, non-government organisations and food industry representatives) to be considered the most appropriate nutrient profiling for corporate reporting globally, followed by Nutri-Score and the UK NPM(46). Nevertheless, in proposing the use of HSR, we acknowledge that it was designed to compare the ratings of similar products and not rank individual products or make comparisons between different types of products or company product portfolios(47).
Corporate strategy
In the ‘corporate strategy’ domain, the recommended reporting metrics (see Table 3 and Appendix B) cover the characteristics of a company’s nutrition strategy and include the extent to which nutrition considerations are incorporated into the company’s strategy (including how nutrition considerations align with financial goals, such as revenue targets), disclosure of nutrition-related performance and the organisation’s governance framework for nutrition. Additional recommendations include disclosure of relationships with external groups, policy positions and submissions to relevant government consultations and political donations and affiliations.
A priority metric within this domain is the proportion of food-related sales from healthy products. This sales-based metric can serve as an overarching measure to reflect business-wide actions on nutrition, including through product formulation, marketing, distribution and availability.
Product formulation
The ‘product formulation’ domain incorporates actions to produce healthier products through product reformulation and new product development (refer to Table 3 and Appendix C).
A priority metric is to report on the overall healthiness of their total product portfolio. In the Australian context, this can be operationalised as the mean HSR of a company’s total product portfolio, reported as both sales-weighted and non-sales weighted, and includes disaggregation by food category using standardised categories (e.g. dairy products, snacks, breakfast cereals).
Additional metrics include the proportion of products meeting relevant voluntary government or global reformulation targets (such as Healthy Food Partnership for Australian companies or international targets in the absence of national category targets) and the average nutritional content of each product category in relation to relevant government targets, with a focus on risk nutrients (sodium, sugars, saturated fats) and energy.
For quick-service restaurants, further metrics include the proportion of menu items and combination meals that are healthy and unhealthy and disclosing actions taken to improve the healthiness of cooking methods.
Nutrition labelling and information
Proposed reporting metrics in the ‘nutrition labelling and information’ domain focus on the provision of nutrition information (on package, in-store and online) and compliance with labelling codes and regulations (refer to Table 3 and Appendix D).
The primary recommendation in the Australian context is for manufacturers and retailers to support the voluntary government-endorsed front-of-pack labelling scheme, the HSR, by displaying on all eligible products and reporting on uptake of the HSR on eligible products, segmented by food category. Quick service restaurants are recommended to report on the implementation of energy menu labelling (mandatory in some, but not all, states and territories in Australia). Companies are also recommended to report progress in providing comprehensive product nutrition information at other point-of-purchase settings, including in-store and online (online stores and delivery apps).
Further, all sectors are suggested to disclose compliance with relevant regulations, including reporting incidents of non-compliance and monetary losses due to legal proceedings associated with labelling codes. Relevant codes include the FSANZ Food Standards Code for all sectors (enforced by state and territory governments through their food acts) and the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (which prohibits the use of nutrition or health claims related to breastmilk substitutes) for retailers and manufacturers.
Promotion practices
The ‘promotion practices’ domain includes responsible marketing of products and brands to the general population and to children and compliance with marketing regulations (see Table 3 and Appendix E).
It is recommended that companies disclose the proportion of marketing spend on healthy and unhealthy products (and related brands), as a priority, stratifying by media type (e.g. broadcast, online and outdoor) and audience age.
It is further recommended that companies implement robust policies to reduce the exposure of children to unhealthy food marketing beyond the current voluntary pledges set by industry self-regulatory codes. This includes monitoring and disclosing advertising impressions for healthy and unhealthy products (and related brands), sponsorships provided for events/activities that are popular with children and families and the use of marketing techniques that appeal to children on product packaging.
In addition, companies are recommended to report compliance with relevant regulations and codes, such as the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (which restricts any promotion of breastmilk substitutes), including actions taken to remediate non-compliance.
Product accessibility and affordability
The ‘product accessibility and affordability’ domain focuses on actions to prioritise the distribution, availability, placement and affordability of healthy foods over unhealthy products (refer to Table 3 and Appendix F).
To ensure equitable distribution of healthy, affordable options (with a focus in the Australian context on rural and lower income communities), companies can conduct distribution/pricing analyses to inform their practices in this area and report on the healthiness of their sales, segregating by areas based on their geography (rural v. metropolitan) and socio-economic level (lower v. higher income). To support the affordability of healthy options, companies are recommended to describe the differences between the recommended retail price of equivalent healthy v. less healthy products. Price promotion strategies can be disclosed by the proportion of price promotions and the average level of price discounts for healthy products, compared with unhealthy.
Retailers are suggested to disclose the proportion of displays in prominent areas containing only healthy products (as a priority), and the proportion of space in prominent area displays devoted to healthy v. unhealthy products. Quick service restaurants are suggested to report on the proportion of combination meal deals sold where drinks and sides chosen are healthy v. unhealthy (where relevant).
Implementation considerations
Recruitment
Thirty-three representatives across fifteen Australian food companies (thirteen food and beverage manufacturers and two quick-service restaurants, a mixture of publicly listed and privately owned companies) participated in interviews. Interviews were attended by between one and four representatives from each company. Of the thirty-three representatives, roles included product development/food technology (n 16), nutrition (n 7), quality assurance/regulatory affairs (n 5), marketing (n 4) and board adviser (n 1). Roles were largely senior positions (e.g. executives, department managers) (n 25), with some specialist/officer roles (n 8).
Themes
The four themes identified from interview responses are described further below.
The need to generate internal buy-in
Company representatives largely welcomed the metrics presented. They noted that support of executive leadership and business areas outside of nutrition (such as marketing and commercial sales teams) was essential, as the ‘nutrition’ team typically lacked decision-making influence related to reporting of marketing or sales activities. Interviewees noted that business metrics on nutrition shifted responsibility from the ‘nutrition’ team to the whole company. For these reasons, they highlighted the importance of having metrics that could be easily understood by the broader business. Most company nutrition-related representatives supported using HSR to underpin reporting metrics, as it was a clear, quantifiable measure that could be understood by those outside of ‘nutrition’.
Public perceptions and company reputation
For companies with existing nutrition reporting, representatives noted that their company’s selection of metrics and targets were based on what was considered were achievable for the company, yet came across as ‘ambitious’ to external groups (such as consumers, media and governments). For example, non-sales weighted reporting on reformulation presented a more favourable representation of their progress, compared with sales-weighted:
‘I understand it is important to have a sales-weighted [metric] from a public health perspective, but when I look at how we have set up sodium [reduction efforts] on a percentage reduction [basis]… the [sales-weighted] metric didn’t necessarily reflect the efforts that were done on sodium reduction.’ (Research and Development Manager)
Resources and infrastructure to support reporting against proposed metrics
Company representatives indicated that their current reporting largely related to product formulation and nutrition labelling, with limited disclosure on promotion practices and product accessibility and affordability.
Several noted that having too many metrics can require substantial resources for routine monitoring and reporting and suggested that the focus be on a small set of core metrics:
‘We are conscious of not having too many metrics for each area and we have to present information that is meaningful and understandable to our readers and the Board.’ (Nutrition Lead)
Some indicated their existing data systems support reporting on nutrition (e.g. product nutrition information could be linked with sales data). For other participants, investment would be required to incorporate nutrition into existing product development, inventory or supply chain data management tools.
‘We had established the metric [to improve the average HSR of the company portfolio] and then found our systems had a lot of [data linkage] gaps and were not set up to support it initially. We were doing [the reporting] manually… but we have spent 6 months working on the system and now it is automated.’ (Nutrition Lead)
Tailoring metrics and reporting methodologies to the company and market context
Company representatives noted that several proposed metrics would require tailoring to the product categories within their company’s portfolio, particularly for categories where the HSR system was not intended for their use (e.g. sauces/condiments, concentrated meal bases). Multinational companies operating in countries beyond Australia suggested adapting metrics to be applied across global-level company reporting.
Discussion
This study proposed forty-one nutrition-related reporting metrics for Australian food companies, based on best-practice principles identified in the existing literature. The metrics can serve as suggested guidance for how companies can report their performance on actions across five key nutrition areas, in line with public health priorities. Interviews with representatives from fifteen Australian food companies welcomed the guidance on recommended metrics, although the lack of executive-level support for nutrition reporting and limited dedicated resources and processes for comprehensive nutrition reporting would likely hamper widespread voluntary implementation.
This study builds on existing reporting frameworks and benchmarking initiatives by tailoring metrics to food businesses across three sectors. While ATNI has a wide-ranging set of benchmarking metrics, they apply only to retailers and manufacturers (not quick-service restaurants) and are not focused on corporate reporting. The reporting metrics proposed in this study are underpinned by a government-endorsed system for classification of product healthiness (i.e. the HSR), whereas metrics from other reporting frameworks refer to generic and, in some cases, vague definitions of product healthiness. For example, the SASB refers to ‘products labelled and/or marketed to promote health and nutrition attributes’. This study builds on existing academic efforts to propose global evidence-based nutrition reporting metrics(Reference O’Hearn, Gerber and Cruz44) by tailoring metrics to the Australian nutrition policy landscape and exploring implementation considerations to support widespread adoption.
While public health recommendations for improving population diets emphasise the importance of a comprehensive approach, some company representatives noted the challenge of reporting against a large set of metrics. Recognising that, initially, it may not be feasible for companies to consistently report against the full list of forty-one metrics, we identified a subset of five priority metrics that could form the minimum of nutrition-related corporate reporting. Of these, the proportion of a company’s food-related sales from healthy products has been consistently highlighted as a priority for companies to disclose and set strong targets to increase(18,48,Reference Hughes and Nicholson49) . Its emphasis on sales encompasses business-wide actions (e.g. product formulation, marketing, distribution), indicating progress towards shifting company growth and profit away from unhealthy products(Reference Corrieri50). Further, it can be applicable to businesses across the three sectors and allows for comparability across companies differing in market share.
Interview participants described several barriers in progressing voluntary adoption of nutrition-related reporting. These barriers, coupled with the current inconsistencies and inadequacies of corporate nutrition reporting, indicate that widespread and consistent reporting across food business sectors will likely require mandatory implementation by government, enforced with strong compliance monitoring and independent external auditing. While financial reporting is a mandated requirement for publicly listed companies in Australia, corporate sustainability reporting has historically been voluntarily adopted in response to investor, regulatory and reputational pressures. In other ESG areas, consistent and accurate corporate reporting has been driven by regulation. For example, the Modern Slavery Act in Australia mandates large businesses to report on these risks, and consequently, companies must dedicate resources and time to this reporting. Despite calls to introduce mandatory corporate reporting on nutrition(Reference Hughes and Nicholson49), there has been limited national or international progress towards this goal. The UK government had previously pledged to introduce mandated business reporting on health, along with sustainability and animal welfare metrics; however, it has since backed down in preference for voluntary reporting, citing perceived costs to industry and consumers(48). Indeed, our study also noted that, for food companies to implement the proposed reporting, they will likely need to invest in data infrastructure, measurement tools and dedicated resources. Efforts to mandate nutrition-related reporting in Australia should anticipate arguments about costs to industry and consider ways to address such arguments, including lessons learned from previous implementation efforts.
In the absence of regulatory action taken on corporate nutrition reporting, greater coherence and coordination across existing reporting frameworks and benchmarking initiatives are required. Our review found many business accountability schemes on nutrition, in line with previous evaluations that show more than one nutrition accountability scheme on average launched each year between 2008 and 2019(42). This proliferation of reporting frameworks and initiatives risks duplication of work in the sector and conflicting standards and metrics for reporting. Further, companies have recounted experiencing ‘reporting burden’ from the numerous reporting requirements of existing accountability mechanisms(16). There has been some work to unify disclosure and monitoring approaches(16,17) , albeit only at the international level, although this work has only occurred outside of Australia. Given that, our approach to propose a set of metrics that are contextually relevant to Australia is likely to increase their value and potential for uptake by both Australian food companies and independent initiatives that monitor company activities. For instance, future iterations of the BIA-Obesity assessment in Australia(Reference Sacks, Robinson and Cameron5,Reference Sacks, Vanderlee and Robinson11) can integrate more detailed assessments of company reporting of performance, in line with the proposed metrics.
While benchmarking and ESG reporting initiatives can help to improve corporate transparency, critics note that their impact on corporate practices can be limited(Reference Cho, Laine and Roberts51). For example, through voluntary reporting, companies may selectively share information that reflects their performance favourably, while downplaying or not disclosing negative aspects. Critics also highlight risks where selective disclosure occurs even after regulations are implemented or where disclosure occurs without genuine changes to corporate practices(Reference Criado-Jiménez, Fernández-Chulián and Larrinaga-González52). While mandated reporting of standardised, evidence-based metrics may address some of these issues, wider regulatory changes will be required to effectively improve population nutrition(Reference Swinburn, Sacks and Hall53). In Australia, this includes nutrition policies such as mandating improved front-of-package labelling, mandating nutrient limits in certain food categories and regulating unhealthy food marketing. More broadly, there are calls for government action to address the excessive market power of food corporations, for example, through improving competition laws and fiscal interventions (e.g. taxes and subsidies) and strengthening lobbying and conflict of interest regulations to reduce the influence of corporations on public health and sustainability policy(Reference Swinburn, Kraak and Rutter14,Reference Wood, Garton and Milsom54) .
This is the first study to propose measurable and meaningful business nutrition reporting metrics for Australian food companies, as informed by a comprehensive review of academic and grey literature on relevant corporate reporting initiatives, on nutrition topics aligned with national health priorities. The proposed metrics are also well-placed to facilitate investors and other interested parties in their tracking of food company progress over time, and study findings may assist other countries in adapting international recommendations for food companies to country-level metrics.
The study had several limitations. Due to the focus on population nutrition and obesity prevention, food company actions in other areas such as environmental sustainability, undernutrition and food insecurity were not considered. Given the increased global attention to environmental sustainability in particular, future work should identify potential opportunities to link business reporting on nutrition with environmental sustainability. The study focused on corporate reporting for the largest food manufacturers, quick-service restaurants and supermarkets. Future studies should explore how the proposed recommendations and reporting metrics can apply to small and medium enterprises, as well as to other businesses in the broader food system (e.g. business-to-business companies, primary producers, ingredient suppliers and food distributors). Several of the proposed metrics incorporated the HSR system for classifying product healthiness, primarily because of the HSR’s relevance to the Australian policy context and its versatility. We acknowledge that, despite support for the HSR system from the public health community in Australia(55), the algorithm that underpins the HSR system has been criticised for misalignment with the Australian Dietary Guidelines(Reference Lawrence, Pollard and Vidgen56). Furthermore, while HSR has been commonly used for cross-category comparisons and evaluation of company product portfolios in Australia and internationally(8,32) , its application for these purposes extends beyond its intended design. Future work should evaluate its suitability and related cut-off points for corporate reporting in Australia and other contexts, including consideration of other options. Development of fit-for-purpose tools and metrics for comparing the healthiness of company product portfolios, including those that are sensitive to changes over time, is likely to be beneficial to monitoring and accountability efforts. Several metrics include segregation by food category (e.g. mean HSR of company products, segregated by food category). Ideally, this would be based on standardised food categories for consistent reporting across companies. While AUSNUT has been developed by the Australian government for food supply and population intake monitoring, it is not designed to be used by food companies in classifying their portfolios or menus. Additional work is needed to determine the most appropriate approach to standardise food categories for the Australian context.
Interviews with company representatives were limited to a convenience sample of food manufacturers and quick-service restaurant companies that consented to participate in the broader study(Reference Ni Mhurchu, Sacks and Haliburton27). Future research should engage a broader range of food businesses (such as retailers) and other interest holders independent of industry (e.g. government and civil society).
Conclusion
The proposed set of reporting metrics offers evidence-based guidance for Australian food companies on best practices for disclosing nutrition-related actions. The proposed metrics can inform government, public health groups and investors in their monitoring of corporate nutrition practices and guide related policy decisions. Lack of executive support and limited resources for comprehensive nutrition reporting are likely barriers to widespread voluntary implementation. Therefore, integration with mandatory corporate sustainability reporting standards, with routine monitoring and enforcement by the government, would likely be required for consistent uptake. Improved monitoring and accountability will also benefit from the development of fit-for-purpose tools for comparing the healthiness of company product portfolios, including changes over time.
Supplementary material
For supplementary material accompanying this paper, visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980025101134.
Acknowledgements
Not applicable
Financial support
GS is a recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leadership Fellowship (2021/GNT2008535). He is also a researcher within an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence entitled ‘Healthy Food, Healthy Planet, Healthy People’ (2021/GNT2006620). GS, JC and CNM are researchers within the Centre of Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health: Next Generation (APP2024716).
Conflict of interest
GS, CNM and JC. are researchers in an NHMRC-funded trial (2019/GNT1191897) that investigates the effectiveness of a nutrition-related intervention with food and beverage manufacturers and quick-service restaurant companies in Australia and New Zealand. The authors declare that they have not received any funding from the food industry.
Authorship
GS conceptualised the study, with input from JS. JCconducted data collection. All authors were involved in data analysis. JC wrote the original draft of the manuscript. All authors edited and reviewed subsequent versions of the manuscript. GS provided overall supervision.
Ethics of human subject participation
This study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki, and all procedures involving research study participants were approved by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (approval HEAG-H 236_2020). Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects/patients.
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