With the aim of reducing the negative impact of excessive amounts of sugar in the diet, following the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), SPAR Croatia launched an important socially responsible activity to reduce the amount of sugar in its own brand products.

This SPAR initiative received a strong tailwind by getting Vindija onboard, one of the most important local producers. This should stand as an invitation to other eminent producers on the Croatian market to join this initiative and engage in work for the common good.

The initiative started from the Austrian market, and SPAR's initiative was scientifically supported by renowned medical professors. Austrian producers of well-known brands such as Rauch, Manner and Berglandmilch also joined the initiative to reduce sugar in products.

Croatian consumers were also able to profit from this initiative, because these products have been available on Croatian shelves for a long time.

SPAR's contribution is visible in the reduction of sugar in products of brands such as SPAR, S-Budget, SPAR Natur*pur and SPAR Vital. In as many as 160 of them, the recipe was successfully changed and the proportion of sugar reduced. In these cases, artificial sugar substitutes were not used, but the amount of sugar in the recipes was reduced, by up to 80% for some products, with no change in taste.

The President of SPAR Croatia Helmut Fenzl pointed out: "At SPAR Croatia, we continuously adjust the recipes of our own brand products, so we managed to significantly reduce the amount of sugar in 36 products made for us by Croatian producers. We are glad that Vindija joined this initiative, which gives this project additional momentum for the benefit of our consumers."

"Raising the quality of life and creating healthier eating habits of our consumers is one of the key business and social priorities of the Vindija Group. We have taken an important step in this direction precisely by rebranding the entire group of 'z bregov fruit yoghurts, in which the proportion of sugar has been reduced by 15%. At the same time, we will annually use 26,000 kg less sugar for this group of products. We have also gone in the same direction in our range of juices, for the production of which as much as 231,700 kg less sugar will be consumed annually. This will provide an extremely significant benefit of reducing the caloric value in both ranges but will not alter the recognisable flavours," said the President of the Management Board of the Vindija Group, Nenad Klepač.

SPAR and Vindija want to be promoters of this project and invite and encourage other Croatian producers to join the initiative to help reduce excessive sugar consumption and participate in the promotion of healthier consumer habits.

Continuous and dedicated work on changing recipes and reducing the amount of sugar in various categories of products such as cakes, soft drinks, syrups, puddings, muesli, biscuits, and cappuccino hasresulted in a reduction in the amount of sugar in own brand products by more than 300 tons!