Campbell's, ConAgra, and Kraft Have Cut Calories, Big Time

By Sam Lewis

New study shows some of the nation’s biggest food companies have cut enormous calories from popular products

In 2010, 16 food manufacturers, including Campbell’s, ConAgra, Kraft, Hershey, Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo pledged to cut 1 trillion calories from their products by 2012. By 2015, they promised to drop calories in products even further, down to a total of 1.5 trillion reduced calories.

It seems like the big players in food manufacturing took the pledge to heart. A study sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — a non-partisan philanthropic and research organization that works to improve the nation's health — found that between 2007 and 2012 food companies reduced calories in their products by 78 calories per person, per day for the entire US population. This number indicates the companies are cutting more than four times the number of calories they promised to cut by 2015. To give a little perspective, a small apple or an average-sized cookie comes in at around 78 total calories. Over the course of a month, a reduction of 78 calories per day totals to just over 2,300 calories — more than an average days’ worth of food.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation hired researchers from the University of North Carolina to count the calories in almost every packaged item found in supermarkets. This was a painstaking task for the researchers, but a necessary one for the foundation to hold food manufacturers accountable. Researchers have not yet released the entire study, but as indicated by the reductions of 78 calories per person, per day, manufacturers who made the pledge in 2010 have already crushed their own goals. While the results of the study are pleasing, they will only matter if manufacturers hold their promises. Food manufacturers “must sustain that reduction, as they've pledged to do and other food companies should follow their lead,” says Dr. James Marks, director of the Health Group at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The companies that made the pledge are among the nation’s most well-known food manufacturers. However, these companies only represent about one-third of all packaged foods at the beginning of the study. Missing from the mix are brands sold under names of retailers. It isn’t fully clear if any changes were made to those products. There is also uncertainty in how reductions in calories will translate into consumer and diet trends. Marks believes food manufacturers’ current efforts of creating smaller servings per package — like 100 calorie packs of snacks and smaller containers of sugary drinks —  will  continue. Additionally, the development of new, lower-calorie adaptations of existing products is likely to remain an upward trend.

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