ATNI Launches Benchmark Report on Food and Beverage Companies’ Lobbying
The Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) published the Spotlight on Lobbying 2022 report in December 2022, benchmarking the nutrition-related lobbying – the Policy commitments, Management systems and Disclosure - of the world’s 25 largest food and beverage (F&B) manufacturers against the RLF.
This report is the first comprehensive interpretation of the RLF in the F&B industry context: it embedded the RLF Principles into a set of indicators following the ATNI methodology framework, raising expectations for companies to set high-level lobbying commitments and implement effective management systems and comprehensive disclosures. Also worth highlighting is that the report well responds to the RLF’s recognition of public interest (Principle I. Legitimacy) by clearly defining the sector-specific elements and assessing companies for their lobbying positions and disclosures on public health policies, such as the WHO-endorsed measures. The report further provided customised analysis and scorecard for each company, as well as recommendations applicable to other companies in the sector.
Overall ranking of the assessed companies:
Key findings discussed in the report include:
While there is wide variation in company maturity on the subject, current practice is far from the standard set in the RLF. This is especially the case for Disclosure. Encouragingly, best practices were identified for most indicators - meaning that, were companies to emulate their peers’ current practices (as a pre-competitive issue), near-full compliance with the RLF is already within reach.
No companies’ lobbying disclosures were global in coverage and complete. Many disclosures appear to be compliance-led (made through lobbying transparency registers as a prerequisite for accessing policymakers) and few disclosures were found for markets that do not require such disclosures, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Disclosure and management systems in relation to trade association memberships were far from adequate, suggesting that the companies do not consider the prospect that trade associations may lobby in ways or with positions contrary to the companies’ to be a significant risk. Also, as a result, stakeholders have limited understanding of the indirect lobbying activities endorsed by the companies.
The ATNI strongly encourage that investors and other stakeholders use these findings to engage with companies to act on the recommendations set out in the report and apply consistent pressure on them to increase transparency and change their practices in accordance with the RLF.
Additionally, following its Spotlight on Lobbying 2021 report on Breast-milk Substitute (BMS) companies, ATNI observes that exposure to the RLF can lead to improvements: three out of five of the leading companies in the 2022 assessment had been previously benchmarked against the RLF as part of the 2021 assessment. Findings from the research indicate that these companies had already made progress on aligning their practices with the RLF.