# Development of Ferrero Nutrition Criteria: category-specific, progressive guidelines for product innovation

## TL;DR

Ferrero created a new nutrition criteria system to guide product development and improve the nutritional quality of their products.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is the development of category-specific, progressive nutrition standards for internal product evaluation and innovation.

## Key findings

- The FNC model classifies foods based on energy and nutrients to limit, such as sugar, saturated fat, and sodium.
- The model encourages nutrients like protein, fiber, and vitamins, as well as ingredients like nuts and whole grains.
- The FNC is designed to evolve with new product development and align with dietary guidelines and consumer trends.

## Abstract

Nutrition standards developed for internal use can help assess nutrient density and guide improvements in company product portfolios. Often category-specific, such standards are used to guide product innovation and new product development.

To develop Ferrero Nutrition Criteria (FNC), a new set of progressive nutrition standards for internal use to evaluate product portfolio and to guide product formulation and development.

The FNC was developed with reference to a publicly available database, the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS 2017-18) and the corresponding Food Pattern Equivalents Database (FPED), both maintained by the US Department of Agriculture. Nutrition standards were based on recommendations issued by international agencies and other expert bodies, pledges that regulate advertising and marketing to children, other existing nutrient profiling models, consumer trends, technological constraints, the nutritional composition of Ferrero products and their taste performance. Minimum values for nutrients and ingredients to encourage were based on dietary guidelines.

The FNC model was used to assign foods and beverages into three classes that were largely based on energy and on nutrients to limit (added sugar, saturated fat and sodium). Among nutrients to encourage were protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and among ingredients to encourage were dairy, nuts, fruits, whole grains, legumes, seeds and vegetables. The setting of category specific criteria also took into account taste, portion size, eating occasions, and role of the food or beverage in the overall diet. The FNC model is intended to be progressive and to evolve continually as new products are developed.

The FNC model reflects Ferrero’s commitment to transparency and the promotion of responsible consumption. It will be used to guide improvements in the Ferrero product portfolio.