3 ways to stop tomorrow being another "Groundhog Day"​ in the diabetes war

"Consumers want to eat more healthfully, but they can't do it alone. They need help from food & drink manufacturers to formulate products with good-for-you ingredients. They need help from retailers to stock right-priced healthful assortments." Nielsen 2016 Global Health and Ingredient Sentiment Survey.

In North America, "Groundhog Day" is the day when the groundhog is said to come out of its burrow at the end of hibernation. If the animal sees its shadow—i.e. if the weather is sunny—it goes back into its hole, which signals 6 weeks more of winter weather. If it's cloudy and he doesn't see his shadow, spring is not far away! "Groundhog Day" has another, more colloquial, meaning. When someone says "It's like Groundhog Day" today, they mean the day is one in which people say the same things and do the same things over and over. I had a "Groundhog Day" moment earlier this week while waiting on a train in Dusseldorf*. This billboard stopped me in my tracks:

It uses a well-known German radio and TV personality, Hans Meiser, to warn folks that 7 million Germans have diabetes, which by my calculation is almost 9% of the entire population of 80.6 million. That's even higher than the prevalence of diabetes in the UK (4 million people) where health officials here say it's already at crisis level!

One of the most common chronic diseases worldwide, diabetes' prevalence continues to increase everywhere. In the UK alone, £16 billion a year is spent on the direct medical costs of diabetes and conditions related to being overweight or obese (according to the NHS chief Simon Stevens). In comparison, says Huffington Post, the fire and police service cost £13.6 billion each year.

It's not just drug costs but a huge amount in-patient care including - as Jamie Oliver highlighted in a 2015 Channel 4 TV programme called #SugarRush - 700 limb amputations each year. That's more than 2 amputations done today alone! Things need to change. Encouraging folks to make better food & drink choices plays a hugely important role in helping to curb the spread of diabetes. This responsibility is shared by parents, government, the food & drink industry, and individuals themselves.

I work in the global food & drink industry. There is a lot (more) the industry can do to stop making making tomorrow another "Groundhog Day". Three things spring to mind, namely

1. Agree to make front-of-pack nutritional declarations mandatory to make it easier for folks to know what they are eating & drinking, and
2. Make better buying decisions at retail level to ensure more truly healthy food & drink are available where folks shop.
3. Adopt a #FoodRevolution attitude to your food & drink NPD

Mandatory front-of-pack nutritional declarations

You may have diabetes yourself or know someone who does right now. My mum has Type II diabetes. I have seen the pile of injection needles near to her bed and her worrying over what is exactly in the food & drink she is consuming daily. Few clearly state on front of pack the level of sugar etc. they contain which makes it harder for folks like my mum to keep her disease in check.

That the industry continues to resist making front of pack nutritional declaration mandatory is a scandal. It is so easy to do the right thing. Our Tg green tea drinks display proudly on front of pack its nutritional content.

Even as a drinks startup, we have decided that we do not want to become part of the problem but instead, part of the solution to making diabetic folks' lives easier and to stemming the spread of the disease.

We do not expressly say that our drinks are "suitable for diabetics" or anything of the sort but it was an important moment for me personally when we received this unsolicited testimonial from a Type 1 diabetic person after he sampled our drinks in Tesco HQ recently:

"Tried the cold green tea earlier today at the office. Tasted lovely and I was impressed that the carbohydrate content was modest (7.2g if I remember right). I explained to the rep that this amount of carbohydrate was perfect for me as a Type 1 diabetic and it is clear that the claims made for considering diabetics are genuine. 7g is an amount that I wouldn't even bolus (calculated insulin dose) for. The drink didn't cause a spike in blood sugar levels. I'm unsure whether this is due to the quality of carb plus the use of stevia gave it an extra kick, still being perfectly sweet without being sickly over-the-top! Thanks again guys, great stuff."

[If only Tesco's soft drink buying team could read the above, written by one of their colleagues.]

Better buying decisions at retail ensure folks have access to healthier (and affordable) food & drink

What's on shelf in the majority of food & drink shops has not fundamentally changed in the past few years. There has been a lot of tinkering with recipe reformulation but SKU rationalisation and the relentless focus by retailers on "availability, availability, availability" (egged on by behemoth suppliers) result in concerned consumers being offered very few healthier & affordable food & drink options. Retailers need to take more responsibility and properly fix the shelves.

I wholeheartedly applaud Sainsbury's recent announcement regarding rearranging its supermarket aisles to encourage shoppers to eat more vegetables and less meat.

BUT....more needs to be done and urgently in other categories, especially soft drinks which - despite what Coca-Cola pays researchers to say - is a key contributor to the growing obesity crisis. France recently banned the practice of offering free refills of sodas and other sugary soft drink (HERE), just one of a long list of measures adopted by the State there to stem the obesity crisis (banning vending machines in schools, limiting the offer of french fries in school cafeterias to once per week, and imposing a sugar tax).

Adopt a #FoodRevolution attitude to your food & drink NPD

Changing consumer trends towards health and wellness is opening up opportunities for new products. For example, NPD in a nascent category - RTD tea - has huge potential to "healthify" the soft drink aisle. I explore how this can be done in a recent Global Convenience Store Focus article (see link HERE).

Unfortunately, the response by two of the global soft drink leaders in 2017 is showing us that Groundhog Day is here to stay.

• Coca-Cola has launched an odd version of "Honest Tea" here in the UK i.e. actual tea absent in most of their fruit flavoured sugary drink range and, at 8 tsps sugar per bottle, certainly more than a "just a tad sweet" which is what they claim on front of pack.
• Not wanting to be left behind, Unilever/Pepsi is rolling out "Pure Leaf" which, at 170 calories & 11 teaspoons of sugar per bottle, is little better than a can of full sugar Pepsi.

Retailers should be strong and reject these products that, although they may inject incremental value into their soft drink aisles, do NOTHING to combat the diabetes war.

Food & drink marketers & innovators, YOU can stop tomorrow's Groundhog Day by adopting a #FoodRevolution attitude to your food & drink NPD.

"....meaningful, lasting change is built from the ground up. If we each take a few small steps to shift the way we grow, distribute, purchase, prepare and prioritise food, the ripple effect would be enormous." Jamie Oliver in a recent TED talk

You must commit to ensuring future NPD are designed with better nutritional guardrails and use the best ingredients & #foodtech available in order to deliver to retailers and consumers truly healthier food & drink. Folks don't trust the industry and, given efforts described above, with good reason. We - the food & drink innovators desperate to improve what's on shelf - we hold the power to change things. I worked in large global FMCG/CPG companies in the past so I understand it's hard but your company's survival - and your own - depends on the decisions you make on NPD.

Let's do the right thing and make today the last day we utter "It's like Groundhog Day"!

Love the post? Hate the post? Have other ideas? Please leave a comment below. For more information about Tg Green Teas, please visit www.drinktg.com. If you would like to discuss this or a related topic, please contact me on snadur@ID2L.com (Ideas 2 Launch Ltd) or connect with me here on Linkedin. I am based in London but globally mobile.

*I was in Dusseldorf en-route to visiting ISM, the world's largest trade fair for sweets and snacks, in Cologne. I walked the length and breadth of the show over 2 days. I estimate that 1% of exhibitors had healthier snacks & sweets on display. The very limited innovation in the area of healthier sweets & snacks suggests that the food & drink industry is still tone deaf to a clear and present alarm in yet another category.