Businesses shoulder responsibility for improving the content of the composition of the range of products.

• The parties conclude chain agreements for product categories with regard to maximum contents for salt, (saturated) fat and sugar and/or calories for a certain period. New agreements are concluded and existing agreements are evaluated and/or validated every year in the Steering Group.
• Retailers, manufacturers and caterers adopt the agreed maximum contents as criteria for their own production or purchasing.
• KHN and Veneca stimulate and encourage their members, via their policy, to make the range of products healthier through healthy purchasing and in the case of freshly prepared products and dishes. KHN focuses on those of its members that have the largest range of consumers.

The working agreements state what the objectives are, how and when these will be achieved and which companies commit to these. The Scientific Advisory Committee set up to this end assesses the working agreements: are the agreements ambitious enough, realistic, feasible?

Within the framework of earlier activities aimed at improving product composition businesses have already concluded several agreements that have already achieved results. These were adopted by the National Agreement To Improve Product Composition (bread, Gouda cheese, meat products, preserved vegetables). Over the next few years businesses will come up with new agreements; these will be announced in advance every year via the annual plan.

Process diagram showing the assessment of chain agreements