Rishard Khan

Re­porter

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Lo­cal bev­er­age com­pa­nies are pledg­ing to of­fer health­i­er drink op­tions in the na­tion’s schools as part of the new­ly-launched Bal­ance Calo­rie Ini­tia­tive part­ner­ship. Among those in the joint ven­ture are Caribbean Bot­tlers T&T Ltd, SM Jaleel and Com­pa­ny Ltd., Agos­ti­ni’s Ltd (rep­re­sent­ing VEM­CO Ltd. and Hand Arnold Ltd.), and Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Ltd.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, un­der the vol­un­tary guide­lines, the bev­er­age com­pa­nies will work with the pub­lic and pri­vate school sys­tems to pro­mote re­spon­si­ble bev­er­age con­sump­tion in the school sys­tem.

“In ad­di­tion, juices, milk, wa­ter, cer­tain low and no-calo­rie bev­er­ages and calo­rie-capped sports drinks, and flavoured wa­ters will be avail­able in sec­ondary schools,” it said.

Launched at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce ear­li­er this week, the ini­tia­tive will al­so see the fol­low­ing mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed:

In­tro­duc­ing new bev­er­age prod­ucts with few­er calo­ries and of­fer­ing prod­ucts in small­er pack­age sizes (e.g., mi­ni cans).

Fea­tur­ing re­duced calo­rie bev­er­ages more promi­nent­ly, in­clud­ing bot­tled wa­ter.

En­hanc­ing mar­ket­ing of ex­ist­ing bev­er­age prod­ucts with re­duced calo­ries per ounce.

En­gag­ing in the BCI Ini­tia­tive, a con­sumer aware­ness pro­gramme to en­cour­age bal­ance and mod­er­a­tion in calo­rie con­sump­tion.

Pro­mot­ing clear­er, easy-to-find calo­rie and nu­tri­tion in­for­ma­tion on our pack­ag­ing.

Speak­ing at the launch, Caribbean Bot­tlers Trinidad & To­ba­go Ltd gen­er­al man­ag­er, Camille Cha­toor, said while the com­pa­nies are all com­peti­tors, they un­der­stand that hav­ing healthy cus­tomers is al­so their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. This is one of the rea­sons why she not­ed this is not a short-term cam­paign.

“This is a mul­ti-year pro­gramme that is go­ing to take a while. If you take a look at how it start­ed in the US, it took more than ten years, but this is a mul­ti-year, com­pre­hen­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­gramme that is cen­tred around, re­al­ly, ed­u­ca­tion of con­sumers, un­der­stand­ing bal­ance, what they eat, drink and do,” she said.

Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Ltd CEO, Pradeep Sub­ri­an, not­ed “con­sumer habits don’t change overnight.”

“It’s cre­at­ed by a move­ment and we are hop­ing here it is that we are go­ing to cre­ate a move­ment that we are com­mit­ted to, that all our com­pa­nies are com­mit­ted to,” he said.

T&T Cham­ber CEO, Stephen de Gannes, com­mend­ed the move by the bev­er­age gi­ants.

While the cam­paign’s launch was de­layed due to the pan­dem­ic, it comes as the Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has trained fo­cus on health­i­er di­ets for chil­dren to re­duce the preva­lence of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases in the coun­try. On June 26, Deyals­ingh is set to meet with the quick ser­vice and ca­su­al din­ing restau­rants through the cham­ber.

On Thurs­day, World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al, Dr Tedros Ad­henom Ghe­breye­sus, who was in T&T on an of­fi­cial vis­it, al­so un­der­scored the need to be­gin com­bat­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, like obe­si­ty, from an ear­ly age.