IN Brief:
- Pladis aims to double sales volume from products meeting its nutritional framework by 2030.
- Qualifying products currently account for around 10% of total sales volume.
- Recipe reformulation, product launches, and expansion into additional markets will support the target.
Pladis has set a 2030 target to double the volume of products it sells with lower sugar, salt, and saturated fat or higher levels of fibre and protein.
Products meeting the company’s new global nutrition framework currently account for approximately 10% of sales volume. The target would raise that proportion to around 20% against a 2023 baseline.
Pladis plans to reach the target through reformulation, new-product development, and the expansion of successful ranges into additional markets. Its brands include McVitie’s, GODIVA, and Ülker and are sold across more than 110 countries.
The framework was developed by the company’s scientists and draws on established systems including France’s Nutri-Score, Australia’s Health Star Rating, and the UK Nutrient Profile Model used to classify foods high in fat, salt, or sugar.
Rather than considering only nutrients targeted for reduction, the internal assessment also recognises fibre and protein. National labelling, advertising, and promotional rules will continue to apply independently in each market.
Pladis has removed 676 tonnes of sugar from UK recipes, equivalent to approximately 169 million four-gram teaspoons. Its Dutch Sultana fruit biscuits have undergone reductions in sugar and salt alongside increased fibre, while Ülker has removed 549 tonnes of fat during the past decade.
Dr Jennifer Moss, chief research and development officer at pladis, said: “People don’t buy biscuits and chocolate because they’re looking for a lecture on nutrition – they buy them because they enjoy them. Great taste will always come first.”
The target forms part of the company’s Happy People, Happy Planet strategy, placing nutrition alongside environmental and social commitments rather than treating reformulation as a separate product-development exercise.
Recipe changes move through the factory
Reducing sugar, salt, or saturated fat in biscuits and snacks changes far more than the nutrition panel. Sugar contributes sweetness, colour, spread, structure, bulk, water activity, and preservation, while fat affects dough handling, aeration, texture, flavour release, and snap.
Fibre and protein additions can absorb more water, increase dough resistance, alter machinability, darken during baking, and create harder or drier textures. A formulation that performs successfully in a kitchen trial may behave differently through industrial mixing, sheeting, depositing, baking, cooling, and packing.
Process settings may need to change with the recipe. Mixing energy, ingredient order, dough-rest time, forming pressure, oven-zone temperature, humidity, bake duration, cooling, and final moisture all influence whether the reformulated product resembles its predecessor.
The target also extends across a global manufacturing network where one formula may not suit every plant or market. Ingredients, legal definitions, consumer expectations, pack sizes, equipment, fortification rules, and supplier capabilities vary between regions.
Expanding successful ranges into more countries may move sales faster than reformulating every established product, although it creates its own factory demands. New products introduce additional ingredients, packaging materials, allergens, cleaning requirements, changeovers, and retailer specifications.
McVitie’s has recently broadened the range through Jaffa Cookies in two flavours, using an established brand across a different product and pack format. Further expansion will have to balance portfolio growth with the operational cost of additional SKUs.
UK rules covering products high in fat, salt, or sugar add a commercial incentive because classification can affect promotion and placement. Reformulated products may provide retailers with greater flexibility, although the same recipe can receive different treatment under national systems.
Ingredient cost remains another constraint. Added fibre, alternative fats, sweeteners, proteins, and flavour-modulation systems may cost more than conventional ingredients or require new suppliers and storage arrangements.
A reduction in one expensive ingredient does not guarantee a cheaper product when the revised formulation creates longer bake times, lower line speed, greater process loss, or more demanding quality control. Commercial assessment needs to include manufacturing performance as well as recipe cost.
Taste and texture remain decisive because improved nutritional composition cannot compensate for lost repeat purchase. Sensory work should cover the full shelf life, since reformulated products can change in hardness, moisture, flavour, and appearance after several weeks.
Packaging may also require adjustment where altered water activity, fat migration, oxygen sensitivity, or portion size changes the barrier requirement. A recipe cannot be considered complete until it has been assessed in the final pack under intended distribution and storage conditions.
The 20% ambition gives product developers a measurable commercial objective, but sales volume rather than the number of reformulated products will determine progress. Changes to large brands can move the figure quickly while carrying greater consumer and production risk.
Pladis will need recipes that satisfy the framework, retain familiar sensory characteristics, run reliably across industrial lines, and remain economically viable. Reformulation succeeds only when the factory and the consumer accept the same product.
