Government Urged to Act on Sugar-Heavy Baby Food

Top brands such as Ella's Kitchen and Heinz are making sugar-heavy, nutritionally poor baby food which fails to meet the needs of infants, a study has found.

- Tobi Thomas

The discovery spurred on groups to call for ministers to strengthen regulation of the market, warning that the current state of affairs will "negatively impact child growth and development".

Researchers at the University of Leeds' school of food science and nutrition found that some brands also carried misleading marketing claims, leading them to urge the government to "act now" in imposing the same traffic light system found on chocolate bars and ice-cream.

Ella's Kitchen pear and peach baby rice was found to have a rice content of only 3%, while sugar made up 60% of its calories. Heinz fruity banana custard gets 71% of its total calories from sugar, with its ingredients only containing 4% milk powder, while its baby oat porridge is 29% sugar.

The study, funded by the Which? Fund, looked at 632 food products marketed for babies and toddlers under three. It found that 41% of main meals marketed for children had sugar levels which were too high and that 21% of ready-to-eat fruit products, cereals and meals were too watery and did not provide adequate nutrition.