Globalisation:European Food Information Council: Controversies surrounding EUFIC people

Josephine Wills

Josephine Wills was involved in a controversy surrounding her employers Mars, a subsidiary of Masterfoods in 2002 when the company suggested that eating chocolate may have health benefits. An article in The Guardian reported in 2002 that the company which can claim to take a 1/4 share of the £3.5bn generated by sales of chocolate in the UK, has over the past decade, been pouring money into research in some of the world's leading universities to try to prove that cocoa beans, the source of pure chocolate, contain enough of the right kind of a class of chemicals called flavonoids to help human hearts stay healthy. Yet the chocolate products Mars markets in Britain and elsewhere contain small proportions of cocoa beans and high proportions of the fats and sugars which, in excess, can lead to obesity - an underlying cause of heart disease. Mars' flagship bar, the Mars bar, contains only a small covering of chocolate and contains mainly sugar. When Dr Wills was questioned over the apparent attempt by Mars to start marketing their chocolate products as health foods, she said "We are not trying to position chocolates as health products. They're not designed that way, they're not marketed that way, but I think if you take chocolate in moderation you're not going to do any harm to yourselves. They're actually doing some good because they're contributing flavonoids shown to have this potential cardiological health benefit." However, Mars has been feeding the media stories about the beneficial qualities of chocolate, using a combination of respectable scientific events and PR companies to nudge journalists towards them. For instance, Mars employed a PR company, Grayling Healthcare, to issue a press release about an American Heart Association event. The release was headlined "Media Alert: News for Chocolate Lovers This Christmas"..

Mars launched its Cocoapro trademark after funding research into the use of plant compound polyphenol in the manufacture of its chocolate.The Cocoapro logo, which appears on packs of M&M's and is soon to be extended across the Mars range, directs consumers to a dedicated website that explains how polyphenols can prevent heart disease.Mars denies it is positioning its confectionery as functional food, but industry groups claim Cocoapro is a cynical marketing ploy. Dr Wills again jumped to Mars' defence, in a response in Marketing Week - "We are saying that, as part of a balanced diet, polyphenols in chocolate can help maintain a healthy heart. There is fat in Mars, but tests have proven it has no effect on cholesterol levels which cause heart disease. We're not making any health claims with Cocoapro and we would never tell people to eat ten Mars Bars a day. We appreciate people will be sceptical. But when organisations say chocolate is bad for you it sounds as though they are not well-informed."

John Lupien

John Lupien in 2000 John Lupien participated in a debate which proposed 'Ultra-processed foods are adverse to human health'. John Lupien opposed in the debate. The debate was a reaction to the practice of transnational food and drink manufacturers exerting pressure on South American countries to reduce the amount of natural foodstuffs they consumed and increase the amounts of processed foodstuffs they consumed. An example of which was the Nestlé attempt to reach Amazonian people and promote their processed products to them, a group who's diet is almost entirely natural and traditional. John Lupien's response was that we should 'get real, and live in the modern world, processed food is the way it is'. The debate resulted in a vote of 30 for the proposal and 0 opposed.