Kraft Foods Inc. said Monday that it will stop advertising many of its less nutritional products on television, radio and print media viewed primarily by children ages 6 to 11-year-olds.
This includes regular Kool-Aid beverages, Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies, several Post children’s cereals, and many varieties of Lunchables lunch combinations, Kraft said in a statement.
“We’re working on ways to encourage both adults and children to eat wisely by selecting more nutritionally balanced diets,” Lance Friedmann, Kraft’s Senior Vice President, Global Health & Wellness, said. “We believe that these initiatives are a step in the right direction.”
The shift in advertising practices comes after a consumer watchdog group called on food companies to stop marketing all junk food to children under 18.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest last week released a new guidelines that call on food and beverage makers, broadcasters, restaurants, movie studios, and schools to reform the way drinks, snacks, fast-food meals, and other foods are marketed to kids.
“Kraft has taken an important first step,” the consumer group said in a statement. “The next should be to strengthen its sodium standards, limit advertising to kids 12 to 17, and extend its marketing guidelines to cartoon characters on packages, “advergames” on the Internet, contests, and other forms of marketing.”
The company said it would continue its existing policy of not advertising in media with a principal audience under age six.
(via Business Wire)
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