Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing inconsistencies in the way that the nutrient profiling model scores breakfast cereal products, whereby some are scored as consumed and others are scored on a dry weight basis.

Public Health England has not undertaken an assessment. The current nutrient profile score for breakfast cereals developed by the Food Standards Agency in 2004 is calculated on 100 grams of the product as sold, on a dry weight basis.

The possible implications of applying the nutrient profiling model from per 100 gram basis to per portion basis was considered as part of the 2007 review of the effectiveness of the nutrient profiling model to reduce the exposure of children to unhealthy advertising during children’s television programming. It was recommended to retain the 100 gram base to avoid unnecessary complexity as there are few United Kingdom dietary recommendations on portion sizes and inconsistent portion sizes used on food or drink packs.