ArticleNutrients2020
Nutritional Content, Labelling and Marketing of Breakfast Cereals on the Belgian Market and Their Reformulation in Anticipation of the Implementation of the Nutri-Score Front-Of-Pack Labelling System.
Article in Nutrients, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling and Its Impact on Food Industry Practices: A Systematic Review of the Evidence.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Peru's front-of-package warning label policy and changes in the healthfulness of the food supply: a pre-post observational study.BMJ global health · 2026Observational
- Effectiveness of front-of-pack nutrition labels in Saudi Arabia: a comparative study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Article
- Beyond Food Safety: Taxonomization of Private Initiatives to Design of Healthier Supermarket Environments.Current nutrition reports · 2025Review
- Green technological interventions for controlling carbon footprint in agro-food processing: a critical review.Food science and biotechnology · 2025Review
- A comprehensive review on cardiovascular disorders development due to salt intake: an emphasis on policy implementation.Health research policy and systems · 2025Review
- Product reformulation in non-alcoholic beverages and foods after the implementation of front-of-pack warning labels in Mexico.PLoS medicine · 2025Article
- Using the Nutri-Score to visualise food reformulation in Germany: the case of breakfast cereals.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Nutri-Score in the European Food Retail Supply: A Potential Incentive for Food Reformulation?Nutrients · 2024Article
- Can Front-of-Pack Labeling Encourage Food Reformulation? A Cross-Sectional Study on Packaged Bread.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Evidence on consumers' perceptions, understanding and uses of the Nutri-Score to improve communication about its update: a qualitative study with shopping observations in France.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Comparison of the nutritional composition and calculated Nutri-score classifications of the Dutch food retail supply in 2018 and 2020.Public health nutrition · 2024Article
- Nutritional Quality of Breakfast Cereals on the French, Belgian and Luxembourg Markets: Which Cereals for Children?Nutrients · 2024Observational
- How far can reformulation participate in improving the nutritional quality of diets at population level? A modelling study using real food market data in France.BMJ global health · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the nutritional quality of French children breakfasts according to the Breakfast Quality Score (BQS).Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Child-directed marketing on packaged breakfast cereals in South Africa.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- A Little Bird Told Me… Nutri-Score Panoramas from a Flight over Europe, Connecting Science and Society.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Processing and Nutritional Quality of Breakfast Cereals Sold in Italy: Results from the Food Labelling of Italian Products (FLIP) Study.Nutrients · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveBreakfast cereals are frequently consumed in Belgium, especially among children. We investigated the nutritional content, labelling and marketing of breakfast cereals and the changes in nutrient content and reformulation in anticipation of the implementation of the Nutri-Score front-of-pack label.
designPictures were taken of cereal packages. The WHO-Europe nutrient profiling tool was used to classify cereals into 'permitted'/'not-permitted' to be marketed to children, while the nutritional quality was assessed using Nutri-Score. The proportion of cereals with nutrition and health claims and/or promotional characters on the front-of-pack was compared between permitted and not-permitted cereals and between different Nutriscore categories using Chi-squared tests. The average nutrient contents per 100g were compared between 2017 and 2018 using paired
settingBelgium.
participantsAll breakfast cereals in the major supermarkets (
resultsOverall, 330 cereals were included. About 77.2% of cereals were not permitted to be marketed to children but, of those, 22.0% displayed promotional characters. More claims (68.9% of all claims) were found on 'not-permitted' compared with 'permitted' cereals, particularly nutrition claims. Most claims were displayed on cereals with the allocated Nutri-Score A (42.0%) and C (37.0%). A significant reformulation of cereals was found between 2017 and 2018, with reductions in total sugar (-5%) (
conclusionBreakfast cereals on the Belgian market are predominantly unhealthy and frequently carry claims and promotional characters. Minimal reformulation occurred over one year. Policy recommendations include restrictions on claims and marketing for not-permitted cereals.
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Registered trials
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