"Sugar - an increasing risk to health and wellness", 31 Aug. 2016

On 18 August 2016, the UK government published its long-awaited childhood obesity strategy...[calling] for all food producers to aim for a 20% cut in sugar levels in products popular with children by 2020... [The] scientific community, NGOs and high-profile health campaigners expressed disappointment at the strategy’s provisions... Increasingly, attention has moved...to sugar consumption with the WHO also noting the contributory impact of sugar in cases of diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. As such, sugar has become a central target in the fight to address global overnutrition...

Rathbone Greenbank..., in early 2016, joined with Schroders in a collaborative engagement project aimed at bringing about a productive dialogue with the UK’s leading food and beverage producers and retailers... We...took...initial findings to five companies in the food retail and production sectors and...sought to find out what best practice could look like... The results of our work are currently being combined into a formal set of investor expectations which will then be sent to companies and academics for review... By...setting baseline expectations...we hope to raise the profile of sugar-related health concerns and seek to identify leaders and laggards in the relevant sectors.