Suppliers accept that there's a need to cut satfats, but actively promoting low-fat cheese puts them at odds with consumers, says Nick Hughes


"A mixture of common sense with an element of overoptimism." No, not a comment on the reaction to England's World Cup draw but a manufacturer's appraisal of the FSA's latest round of proposals on saturated fat reduction.

In the wake of the graphic poster campaign that kicked off the FSA's satfat initiative early this year, many suppliers feared the agency would deploy similarly aggressive tactics in the proposals published last week. Initially, some were encouraged by a report that acknowledged the challenges facing manufacturers on reformulation and laid out what on the face of it looked to be sensible proposals to get consumers eating less fatty foods.

But on closer scrutiny of the plans to promote low-fat cheese products, expand the definition of ice cream and Cheddar and reformulate pies and meat products, they are now questioning how achievable these targets really are in this market.

Last week, The Grocer highlighted the anomalies in the FSA's estimated costs of meat pie and pastry reformulation. The FSA figure of £3,000 per SKU was roundly criticised as being wildly inaccurate in the context of the £6m cost of reformulating three McVitie's biscuits. Pies aside, however, it's cheese suppliers that will face the greatest set of hurdles if they are to do what the FSA wants.

One of the key proposals is for Cheddar cheese manufacturers to increase promotion of reduced/low-fat options to encourage consumers to switch away from mainstream Cheddar cheese.

In theory, it's a logical plan, but the reality is that the market for reduced-fat cheeses is very much in its infancy. Manufacturers are still coming to terms with the challenges involved in making a low-fat cheese comparable in texture and taste to a standard variant. As First Milk's sales and marketing director Richard Hollingdale said earlier this year: "If you can't make a good product, it's not going to sell, no matter what your message is."

The FSA will point to products such as Dairy Crest's Cathedral City Lighter, which has generated sales of £25m since its launch in February 2007, as evidence that the technology is there to develop marketable lower-fat products. But lower-fat Cheddars still account for less than 10% of the total Cheddar market. In this context, the FSA's target of growing the reduced-fat sub-market to more than 25% of the total Cheddar market by 2015 seems ambitious to say the least.

"I would question whether some of the targets are realistic," says Clare Cheney, director general of the Provision Trade Federation. "It's a good thing to give consumers a choice but the idea of companies promoting reduced-fat versions at the expense of full-fat is not realistic. Manufacturers will go where the demand is."

'They don't taste very nice'
That demand remains for full-fat Cheddar. When the idea for satfat reduction targets was first mooted, Dairy Crest's marketing director Paul Fraser said that although about two thirds of consumers are willing to try lower-fat cheeses, only a small proportion buy them regularly.

"A lot of them just don't taste very nice," he explained bluntly.

A consumer shift to lower-fat variants of Cheddar would be driven as much by technological improvements in production as by clever marketing, he suggested. "I think there is a demand for healthier, lighter products in the market, but our experience is that you need to balance that against why consumers buy these products in the first place," he said. "People buy cheese because they really enjoy the taste of the product."

Stephen Airey, head of the saturated fat and energy programme at the FSA, agrees that matching the taste profile of lighter cheeses against standard Cheddar has an important role to play in encouraging switching, but he points to the example of Cathedral City and a number of own-label reduced fat Cheddars as evidence that progress is being made. "Ten years ago lower-fat cheeses were unpalatable, but now there are three or four very good Cheddars on the market," he says. "We would like the industry to encourage its customers to consume these healthier products."

Everyday positioning
Airey says manufacturers and retailers should do more to promote reduced-fat variants through product placement and ensuring they have prominent positions down the dairy aisle.

Reduced-fat variants could also be promoted more proactively as cooking ingredients, rather than cheeses competing for space on a cheeseboard, says Nigel White, secretary of the British Cheese Board. "The positioning needs to be everyday," he says. "The people who've switched have found that these cheeses work for them."

As an extra incentive to reformulation, the FSA is considering trying to redefine what constitutes a Cheddar. The composition of Cheddar cheese is controlled by national legislation, which in effect stipulates a minimum fat level for products designated 'Cheddar'.

Recognising this as a potential barrier to reformulation, the FSA is planning to explore the potential to lower the required fat content of Cheddar cheese to enable reduced-fat varieties to call themselves Cheddar. "It's something industry brought up in our discussions with it," says Airey. "We're not saying we're definitely going to do it but industry has asked us to look at it as a possibility."

Relaxing the legislation runs the obvious risk of low-quality Cheddars gaining the same status as those that use the highest quality ingredients, but Airey, like many in the industry, believes the pros outweigh the cons. "It's true there is that concern and we've talked with certain producers of higher-quality cheeses, but Cheddar isn't a PGI like Melton Mowbray pies so it shouldn't be too much of an issue."

'X% less fat' outlawed
Indeed, the greatest issue that could prevent dairy manufacturers marketing reduced fat products to consumers is what the FDF calls a "Kafkaesque" situation whereby the FSA is asking manufacturers to promote reduced-fat alternatives, when EU regulation may soon prevent them from doing just that.

On 19 January a new EU Regulation comes into force governing nutrition claims that can be made for food and drink products. As things stand, claims such as 'x% less fat' and 'extra light', which are particularly prevalent for yellow fats and spreads, will be outlawed.

"The new regulations in January will restrict efforts to make nutrition claims on pack particularly for reformulated products," says Julian Hunt, director of communications at the FDF.

The FSA is currently leading the UK's negotiations in Brussels, where Airey says it is trying to persuade Europe to take "a more flexible approach" to nutrition claims.

Unless the FSA succeeds in removing some of the barriers, progress will be slow, warns Hunt.

Ultimately, manufacturers will continue to go where consumer demand takes them. Until shoppers discover a taste for light cheeses, there's fat chance of suppliers promoting them at the expense of the real thing.

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