Better products

We want to eat healthy and tasty food. Dairy products offers both. Milk naturally contains essential nutrients. We season part of our products with sugar to make them tastier.  Sugar is sometimes also used as a preservative. This is essential in regions where refrigerators are not commonly used. At FrieslandCampina, we work non-stop on striking the right balance in our portfolio. We are gradually enhancing the nutritional value of our products.

The FCNS are nutrition criteria aimed at retaining the natural nutrients in milk and reducing the amounts of calories, fat, sugar and salt in all our products. We actively monitor and report on our progress annually.

Over the last decade, we have made steady progress in aligning our product portfolio to clear nutrition criteria. In 2015 our first Global Nutrition Standards (GNS) were launched as a set of nutrition criteria aimed at retaining the natural nutrients in milk while limiting the amounts of calories, saturated and industrial trans fat, sugar and salt in our products. From a baseline of 57 percent compliance, an ambitious target of 70 percent compliance to the GNS criteria by 2020 was set and achieved, along with a good balance between nourishing products intended for daily use (min. 70 percent sold volume) and indulgence products for occasional use (max. 30 percent sold volume). 

Building on the successful achievement of our 2020 target, we set out to raise our ambition further. In 2020, we tightened the GNS criteria (GNS Next Level) by aligning them with the 2019 Choices International Nutrition Criteria. We also expanded the requirements to include adequate amounts of milk protein and fortification of key vitamins and minerals that address micronutrient deficiencies in lower- and middle-income markets.

In 2025, we launched the next evolution: the FrieslandCampina Nutrition Standards (FCNS). This refined our product categorisation and criteria to better reflect our current portfolio.

The FCNS guide product development and product improvement and form the foundation for assessing the nutritional quality of our products. To provide transparent insight into the nutritional quality of our product portfolio, we also benchmark our products against the internationally recognised and government-endorsed Health Star Rating (HSR). This nutrient profiling model is also used in the assessments of the Access to Nutrition initiative (ATNi).

2030 target: 76 percent of our consumer products (of the total volume sold) complied with the FrieslandCampina Nutrition Standards (FCNS).

Please click here for more information about the compliance on individual nutrients.