Food industry to Obama: We'll improve nutrition

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. food industry agrees the White House can take the lead on making healthier school meals but said on Friday it could improve the food available in stores without government intervention.

"The school environment is a special environment where having a government play a role in setting the standards for what's sold makes sense," Scott Faber, a vice president at the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), told reporters.

"I think the public marketplace is a different environment," he said.

First lady Michelle Obama is leading an initiative to combat child obesity. She has urged food makers to work faster to reformulate or repackage food to make it healthier.

Food manufacturers need "to do their part to improve the quality of the food that they provide," she said at a White House 'Childhood Obesity Summit' on Friday.

The food industry group said its members improved the nutritional value of more than 10,000 products between 2002 and 2006 and plans in May to update that total to include changes through 2009.

Faber said the White House respects the industry's ability to offer more choices with less sodium, sugar and fat.

A separate group, the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, which includes many GMA members, will announce pledges to improve the health content of its products later this month.

Obesity among U.S. children has doubled in the past 20 years, and almost a third are either overweight or obese.

Obesity causes heart disease, diabetes and other health problems and costs the United States an estimated $150 billion each year, according to U.S. federal agencies.

Chris Waldrop, who directs food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the White House initiative was aimed to prod the industry into making healthier foods without government mandates.

"If the government was requiring certain levels of sodium, certain levels of fat ... I think they may get some blowback and be accused of overreach and the government trying to take over the food supply," Waldrop said.

Anxious to cash in on the push for healthier foods, major food companies have recently changed some popular products.

"We've heard from consumers and you can see this in the companies in terms of how they've changed their recipes," said GMA chairman Pamela Bailey.

Kraft Foods, the maker of Oreo cookies and Velveeta cheese, announced it would cut sodium levels in its North American products by about 10 percent over the next two years -- eliminating more than 750 million teaspoons of salt.

PepsiCo, the world's No. 2 soft-drink maker, vowed in March to cut the levels of salt, sugar and saturated fats in its top-selling products by 2020.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)