22/08/2025
Will voluntary guidelines make the baby food industry change?
Today the government announced new voluntary guidelines. These have been under consultation for YEARS. I have responded to 2 consultations on the same guidelines, one was before the pandemic.
I welcome these guidelines finally being published. I look forward to the evaluation of the guidelines in 18 months and hope that the government will see why mandatory guidelines are needed.
So what do the guidelines focus on:
Marketing - which is very welcome if companies follow this! I would have liked pouches to have been labeled with an age range rather than from 6 months. Children do not need purees after a couple of months of introducing solids (if they need them at all) with some medical exceptions.
Sugar in snack foods. This is very welcome.
Baby food is already strictly regulated in terms of pesticide levels, adding salt, levels of protein in meals etc but the legislation is old. That is why these guidelines need to be law not voluntary.
I'll be sharing more about this in due course but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
This is not about demonising bought baby food, it's about making baby food suitable for the babies and toddlers it nourishes.
Thanks to the hard work from and many more to help push this agenda. We need parents to share their thoughts with their MPs to keep this topic on the agenda.
