News release

From: George Institute for Global Health

Nine in ten baby and toddler food products sold in Australian supermarkets now use marketing techniques designed to appeal to children too young to read, new George Institute for Global Health research reveals.

The study, comparing product packaging from 2015 and 2024, found the use of child-directed marketing on infant and toddler foods jumped from 73% to almost 90% in less than a decade, despite growing public health concern about the nutritional quality of these products.

Bright colours, cartoon-style graphics and branded characters were among the biggest movers. Branded characters or spokespersons appeared on 62% of products in 2024, up from just 34% in 2015. Packaging using "fun" or "cool" visual cues nearly doubled, from 48% to 79%.

Lead author Prisca Petty Arfines, from The George Institute's Food Policy Division, said the findings showed manufacturers were leaning harder into persuasive packaging even as scrutiny of the sector intensifies.

"These products are aimed at children who can't read a label or understand a claim," she said. "So instead, companies are using colour, characters and playful design to do the persuading. It's a powerful, largely unregulated way to shape what ends up in the shopping trolley."

The research also found that marketing aimed at parents and carers, including claims about convenience, value and sustainability, remained extremely high and grew further over the same period, meaning packaging is now working overtime on two audiences at once.

Dr Daisy Coyle, Dietitian and Senior Research Fellow at The George Institute, said the intensifying marketing was undermining efforts to improve the nutritional quality of foods for babies and toddlers.

"Time-poor parents are doing their best but they're up against packaging deliberately designed to appear healthier, more fun and more trustworthy than it actually is," she said. "Most of these products fall well short on nutrition. The last thing we need is for them to be marketed more aggressively to both kids and their parents."

Despite mounting evidence and a live government consultation into improving commercial foods for infants and young children, Australia still has no mandatory restrictions on this kind of marketing. But some countries are far more advanced in this area.

Chile's Food Labelling and Advertising Law, which bans child-appealing marketing on unhealthy packaged foods, has already been shown to reduce exposure and shift purchasing behaviour.

"We know these techniques work, that's why industry uses them," Dr Coyle said.

"Other countries have shown that strong, mandatory regulation can turn this around. Australia has the evidence. What's missing is the will to act on it."