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#HonestBabyFood

Help us stop baby food companies labelling ultra-processed food as healthy.

Ultra-processed food in early childhood is linked to allergies, obesity and other chronic conditions – and it’s still sold to parents as the healthy choice. 58% of the baby & toddler food we checked breaches at least one of the UK’s voluntary standards. Help us demand urgent action from the Government to make them mandatory.

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58%

breach

58%

breach

58%

breach

We've written to the UK Secretary of State for Health calling for urgent action on baby and toddler food.

Read the full letter

Signed by leading doctors, researchers and public figures

Researchers, doctors and public figures have signed our letter – including a sitting MP and experts from UCL, Imperial College London and Cambridge.

Prof. Willem De vos

Alba Health, 900+ publications

Dr Federica Amati

Imperial College London

Nora Cavani

Alba Health

+

Prof. Willem De vos
Alba Health
Dr Federica Amati
Imperial College London
Prof. Tim Spector
King's College London
Prof. Martin Blaser
Rutgers; TIME 100
Dr James Kinross
Imperial
Dr Simon Opher
MP
Nora Cavani
Alba Health
Dr Ricardo Valladares
Siolta Therapeutics
Prof. Katri Korpela
University of Helsinki
Prof. Richard Insel
University of Rochester
Dr Majdi Osman
University of Cambridge
Dr Michael Antoniou
Independent scientist
Rob Hobson
Nutritionist
Catherine De Lange
Editor, New Scientist
Charlotte Stirling-Reed
Baby & child nutritionist

Join the movement – add your name

Join the movement for honest baby & toddler food

Why it matters

"UK children will be one of unhealthiest generations in decades, doctors say"

The Guardian, 14 July 2026 – reporting the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's analysis of 12 indicators, including asthma, obesity and vaccination.

40%

have a diagnosed allergic condition (UK)

40%

have a diagnosed allergic condition (UK)

40%

have a diagnosed allergic condition (UK)

1 in 5

have eczema, which has trebled in 30 years (UK)

1 in 5

have eczema, which has trebled in 30 years (UK)

1 in 5

have eczema, which has trebled in 30 years (UK)

The first years shape our children's health

A baby isn't born with a finished immune system. It's built in the first years of life by gut bacteria that teach it to tell real threats from harmless ones, like food. Disrupt that, and the immune system is more likely to overreact – a pattern linked to allergies, eczema and asthma.

This is where modern baby food fails children

Gut bacteria live on fibre. Ultra-processed food has very little – so the food sold as the healthy choice is the food that starves them. Scientists have described the resulting loss of beneficial bacteria as an "invisible extinction" of beneficial bacteria. The first three years shape immune and metabolic function for life.

The UK Parliament's Health and Social Care Committee confirmed in January 2026 that these early years are a critical window – and that early intervention is one of the most cost-effective investments a government can make.

Prof. Willem De Vos

"Decades of research have made clear that the microbes children acquire in the first years of life shape their immune and metabolic development in ways that persist across a lifetime. It is no longer tenable for regulation to lag so far behind the evidence."

— Prof. Willem M. de Vos, Alba Health, 900+ publications

The problem

Ultra-processed baby & toddler food is sold to parents as the healthy choice. “Natural.” “Wholesome.” “Nutritious.” Words that reassure, and mean nothing – because none of them have a legal definition.

It’s marketing, not nutrition. And parents have no way of knowing the difference from the front of a pack. A pack can say “no added sugar” and still be sweetened with fruit juice concentrate.

That's why we audited 224 products from nine of the UK's biggest baby & toddler food brands.

The finding

224

products audited

9

of the UK's biggest baby & toddler food brands

58%

breach at least one Government guideline

8 of 9

brands exceeded sugar limits

Sugar content was breached by products from eight of the nine brands checked. In several products, sugar accounted for more than 80% of total energy content – more than three times the relevant guideline limit for that product category.

The voluntary standards clearly aren't working – the sugar content of kids' food is still far too high, and being marketed as "nutritious". Things need to change.

The finding

224

products audited

9

of the UK's biggest baby & toddler food brands

58%

breach at least one Government guideline

8 of 9

brands exceeded sugar limits

The voluntary standards clearly aren't working – the sugar content of kids' food is still far too high, and being marketed as "nutritious". Things need to change.

AN EXAMPLE

Claims vs reality

What the front pack says

Raspberry fruit snack

No added sugar*

Wholesome

Perfect for little hands

What the front pack says

Raspberry fruit snack

No added sugar*

Wholesome

Perfect for little hands

What the front pack says

Raspberry fruit snack

No added sugar*

Wholesome

Perfect for little hands

What's actually inside

88%

apple

the largest ingredient, yet it's sold as raspberry

66%

sugar per 100g

Over the Government's guideline for snacks

Alba Health audited 224 baby & toddler food products from nine of the UK's best-known brands sold in major UK supermarkets, against the Government's OHID (Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) voluntary infant food guidelines, published August 2025.

Join the movement for honest baby & toddler food.

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One year on: The timeline

2003

The last time binding standards for commercial baby & toddler food were updated.

2020–2024

Voluntary guidelines first drafted – five years in development.

Apr 2025

A BBC Panorama investigation finds baby food pouches from major UK brands containing more sugar than a one-year-old should eat in a day – sold as everyday weaning food.

Aug 2025

The Government publishes new baby & toddler food guidelines on sugar, salt and honest labelling. Voluntary. No enforcement. Industry asked to comply within 18 months.

Aug 2026

We audit 224 products from nine of the UK's biggest baby & toddler food brands. 58% breach at least one guideline.

Aug 2026

We write to Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care – with 21 signatories including researchers from UCL, Imperial College London and Cambridge – calling for health claims to be banned on children's ultra-processed food, and for the guidelines to be made law now.

There's much more work to be done, which is why we need your support too.

Add your name here

The guidelines are voluntary, with no monitoring mechanism and no review promised before the February 2027 deadline. Health bodies including the Food Foundation and Action on Salt warned from the outset that voluntary measures rarely deliver. With no official check due for over a year, we ran our own – and the early data suggests the voluntary guidelines aren't enough.

Our ask

Ban health claims on ultra-processed foods for young children.

No “natural,” “wholesome,” “nutritious,” “ideal for finger feeding,” or “from 4 months” on packaging for under-5s, extending to toddler snacks, follow-on formula, cereals and other processed products marketed to young children.

Make the voluntary guidelines mandatory now, not in 2027.

Enforceable nutrient limits, independent testing and monitoring, and financial penalties that outweigh any commercial gain from non-compliance.

This isn't just about labelling. Ultra-processed food in infancy has been linked to a disruption of the gut microbiome scientists call an "invisible extinction" – with lasting effects on children's immune health.

The letter

Read the full letter

Add your name - join the scientists, clinicians, nutritionists, and parents calling for change.

Add your name here

WHO WE ARE

We're built on groundbreaking research.

Behind Alba is a team of researchers and clinicians dedicated to understanding gut health from early life onward. Our work builds on large-scale longitudinal research and hundreds of thousands of microbiome data points.

Together, our team has contributed more than 1,600 peer-reviewed publications.

1600+

Publications in our team

300,000

Lifestyle datapoints in our study

25+

Years of research

Developed based on 25+ years of R&D by scientists with over 1,600 publications

Want to go deeper?

We sat down with Dr. Federica Amati, Prof. Willem de Vos, and Dr. Ricardo Valladeres on our podcast, Healthy Gut, Healthy Kids, to talk about early gut health, ultra-processed food, and the marketing tactics parents are up against.

POLICIES

OUR COMPANY

SUPPORT

POLICIES

OUR COMPANY

SUPPORT

Help us stop baby food companies labelling ultra-processed food as healthy.

Help us stop baby food companies labelling ultra-processed food as healthy.

We've written to the UK Secretary of State for Health calling for urgent action on baby and toddler food.