TV watchdog's targeting of ads for cheese grates with farmers

CHEESE IS a danger to children? You gouda be kidding, say farming groups, who have set themselves on a collision course with the State’s broadcasting watchdog over a draft advertising code published yesterday.

Among the foods the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland wants to ban from breaks during children’s television is cheese – both high and low fat.

Public observations on the draft Children’s Commercial Communications Code are invited over the next two months.

Once submissions have been taken into account and a final code written it will be legislated for and is expected to come into force next January.

The targeting of cheese in the plan – signalled in recent weeks – has grated with industry groups as well as politicians, including Fine Gael party chairman Charlie Flanagan, who in the Dáil recently likened the proposal to the “nanny state gone mad”.

That was mild by comparison to some of the criticism yesterday. Stressing it was no laughing matter, the Irish Dairy Industries Association said the authority’s decision “sends mixed messages to consumers and threatens the reputation of Ireland’s dairy industry at home and abroad”.

Kevin Kiersey, chairman of the Irish Farmers Association’s national dairy committee, said that the approach was more likely to damage than improve children’s diets.

“Cheese provides a concentrated source of calcium – an element lacking from many children’s and teenagers’ diets – and many other valuable nutrients,” he said.

Other blacklisted foods include potato crisps, including low fat; most breakfast cereals; biscuits and cakes; confectionery; most pizzas, sausages and burgers; mayonnaise; sweetened milkshakes and fruit juices; cola and fizzy drinks, except diet versions; and butter and margarine.

Also, if advertisements for such products are shown during programming likely to be watched by children – such as X-Factor, Coronation Street or The Voice – they cannot be aimed at children, include celebrities or sports stars, include television or cinema “characters” or personalities or contain nutritional or health claims.

Cheese advertisements during children’s television should be banned as it was high in fat “and saturated fat”, the draft code says. An exception was made only for cottage cheese.

Declan McLoughlin, policy officer with the authority, said that it had adopted the nutrient profiling model developed by the UK Food Standards Authority for broadcasting regulation in Britain to assess whether a food or drink had a high fat/sugar/salt content.

“We are not interested in telling people what they should and should not eat. Our interest is in the environment in which they make informed choices,” he said.

A copy of the draft code is available at www.bai.ie