Danone UK - Measure impact on diet & health

MEASURE IMPACT ON DIET AND HEALTH

Food has always been known to have an impact on health. The challenge is to evaluate and quantify it.

The way Danone Nutricia tackles measurement today is rather new: as we sell food, our products have an effect on diet, and their ultimate effect on health is itself modulated by the diet. This approach is key to contribute to the achievement of the Group’s mission: “Bringing health through food to as many as possible”.

That’s why we developed the NutriImpact methodology. It is designed to demonstrate the impact of our categories and products on nutrition and diet. But also to support their impact on health THROUGH diet. NutriImpact both analyses what people eat and then models interventions’ impact on diet and health. This allows us to define the nutritional profiles of our products with the best impact & demonstrate the relevance of our categories & lines in healthy diets.

A COMBINATION OF 2 RESEARCH ASSETS

ANALYSING WHAT PEOPLE EAT

Dietary patterns & diet quality

Danone Nutricia Research uses dietary recording methods to know what people eat and clustering to characterise their diet in terms of:

Nutritional quality of the diet compared to intake-recommendations. For that, our teams use global diet quality scores,

Dietary patterns, in order to group people according to their dietary habits.

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MODELLING INTERVENTIONS INTO DIETARY & HEALTH IMPACT

Simulation & modelling

Our teams conduct virtual interventions in order to model the diet as a whole and assess the impact of our products. They have two means of action:

Simulation, to project the effect of changing the composition of the products or the quantity consumed on nutrient-intakes,

Optimisation, to assess how our categories can help reach nutritionally balanced diets while sticking as much as possible to food habits.

Measurements & Impacts of Children's Drinking Habits

Public Health Context:

Water is the healthiest way to hydrate. Yet in 2006 only 12% of children’s fluid intake in Poland was plain water and over 60% of other beverages consumed contained sugar, while rates of obesity and overweight were rising amongst Polish children.

Danone’s Purpose:

Evaluate the long term impact (1 year) of a 5-week education programme aiming to drive Polish children (3 to 6 years old) towards healthier drinking behaviours.

Key contacts:

Romain Monrozier, Hydration & Health Department (Danone Nutricia Research)

Agata PODWOJCIC (CBU)

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OUR APPROACH

Our programme ranged from education to an intervention study :

A comprehensive educational program called “Mum, Dad, I prefer water” targeted Polish children, parents and teachers.

After 6 yearly editions in 1,340 Polish cities, 800,000 children in 8,000 educational institutions and 800,000 parents were reached.

Through an intervention study, we evaluated if a 5-week education program has long term (1 year) impact on children's drinking behaviours.

Business Impact

The project served to increase the brand credibility and establish Zywiec as the leader in healthy hydration in the country.

Public Health Impact

About 40% of Polish mothers of children aged 3-6 years now know the program and understad the ideas behind it. 92% of Polish mothers evaluated the program as interesting and important, mainly due to the healthy hydration messages.
We improved drinking habits: a 5-week intervention study showed that after 1 year, children could switch from sugary beverages to water, and they multiplied their water consumption by 5. In the meantime, they decreased their consumption of sugary drinks.

Stakeholder engagement

The program was co-created with the Ministry of Health, the Mother and Child Institute and was supported by the Ministry of Education and external experts. All education materials were developed with teachers. The programme, aiming to promote water as the healthiest option, engaged the whole child's community: children, parents, health care professionals and teachers. It was endorsed by Ministries and local experts.
After the success with children, the Polish team started a new program called: “Mum, Dad d
Drink Water”, aiming to engage kids to educate their parents on healthier behaviours.