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Dublin: 9 °C Friday 24 May, 2013

No arts: Nestlé Ireland drops artificial ingredients

The confectioner says it has replaced artificial ingredients from its entire range, replacing them with fruit, vegetable and plant concentrates.

Image: osde8info via Creative Commons

NESTLÉ IRELAND has announced the removal of all artificial ingredients from its range of confectionery which includes Kit Kats, Smarties and Aeros.

The company says that the Nestlé Crunch was the final one of 79 products to make the switchover in a project it started in 2005. Smarties and Milky Bars were among the first products to undergo the ingredient switch.

More than 80 ingredients have been replaced with alternatives including concentrates of fruit, vegetables and edible plants such as hibiscus, according to the confectioner.

Nestlé says the switch was prompted by customer concerns over additives in food products and the company had committed to finding alternatives to the artificial colours, flavours and preservatives used in its range.

Nestlé Ireland country manager Oliver Sutherland said that the move away from artificial ingredients marked a “significant milestone” in the company’s 100-year history.

“Nestlé is proud to be the only major confectionery company in the Ireland to be 100 per cent free of artificial preservatives, flavours or colours across the entire portfolio,” he said. “To achieve this, Nestlé Ireland and our suppliers have worked very hard ensuring we don’t compromise and we maintain the same quality and taste of all our brands.”

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Comments (19 Comments)

  • Well done nestle

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    • Non artificial does not equal good! Tobacco, cannabis, caffeine etc are non artificial too… IT’S A CHOCOLATE BAR for fu sake!!!!

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    • True. Many years ago when my daughter was a wee baby I remember reading an article on baby food, as you do, it scared the living crap out of me. It said that many baby food products claimed to have only natural products, and they do, but what they think of as natural included bone, beaks feathers and other parts of an animal that we wouldn’t even consider edible. Bear in mind this was almost 25 years ago.

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  • Whether something is “artificial” or “non-artificial” has absolutely zero bearing on how harmful it healthy it is to humans. What nestle are doing here is using the naturalistic fallacy as a marketing ploy.

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  • Good marketing ploy , I will not be buying Nestlé brands , whatever they sell . Poor mothers were conned by free samples of baby milk then went home with nothing to feed their hungry babies ,’.

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  • Real leaders, I love it.

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  • Nestlé, yet another evil corporation. I won’t be tempted to buy any of their products no matter what they do.

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  • how natural is a natural ingredient?

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  • Better living through Chemistry

    Got nothing against synthetic additions there are as many carcinogens out there in the fake world as there are out the natural. Plus the EU test and certify them all and they’re not riddled with lobbyists like the FDA…

    The only thing is the taste is usually worse but that’s generally because its just cheap shite that’s loaded with additives to disguise the fact it’s the worst quality item that can be loaded with corn sugar and MSG and legally sold as food at the end of the day it’s the consumers responsibility not to buy those or feed them to our kids

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  • Probably just a by product of cost cutting. Nestle are as ruthless as Shell or Apple for making a buck at any cost.

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  • If they are using fruits, vegetables extract are these genetically modified foods? If they are I would be a bit annoyed as all nestle are doing is replacing artificial ingredients with genetic manipulated food. It’s bad enough farming is being destroyed by these gmo crops with the likes of monsanto making sure farmers only use there seeds. The effects of genetic manipulation are still not known with widespread tests still being carried out. I would rather artificial ingredients to genetically modified ingredients.

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    • I won’t touch their products after I read how they allegedly encouraged very poor third-world mothers into using their free formula samples in maternity hospitals despite the fact mothers have to return to villages where well water is often contaminated, or not suitable for very small babies to drink. By then their own breast milk has dried up and they are forced to feed their infants with the not-free-anymore formula, with obvious consequences to the health of the infant.

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    • John 02/03/12 #

      Isn’t Nestle owned by Monsanto? Monsanto genetically modifies everything and anything that can be consumed. This story is not good news, its a warning…

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  • You need an ‘often’ or ‘usually’ option. We all slip sometimes.

    Having said that, even with or without the artificial additives, nestle products are gank.

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  • It would be good to have more detail here. Which ingredients were replaced and which were put in instead? For example, many confectioners have started using soy – this is not an improvement.

    Also the reliance on laboratory derived ‘seed’ oils high in polyunsaturates, instead of the traditional animal and plant fats that are higher in saturates may turn out to be the single dietary change that broke our metabolisms and made us fat.

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  • Nestle and Cadbury use gm products in other countries. Do we import gm? Do we test for the presence of gm in processed imported foodstuffs?

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  • dam advertisements get u every where! I dont even know why I clicked on to it!

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