The Importance of Vitamins to Human Health Proceedings of the IV Kellogg Nutrition Symposium held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London, on 14–15 December, 1978

The Kellogg Company ranks among the world's leading food manufacturers, and it follows, therefore, that our corporate policies are important to human health. Indeed food manufacturers, as a combined industrial force, must bear a major responsibility for the health of mankind because commercially processed foods are increasingly an indispensable part of the mosaic of human nutrition. This is particularly true in advanced industrialised societies. Here, in Great Britain, 40% ofthe people live in major conurbations and 41 % of the food they eat is either pre-cooked or preserved, compounded or frozen, dehydrated or concentrated, or modified in some other way to satisfy a consumer need or preference. These preferences are communicated to the manufacturer through the competitive forces of the market, and are then translated into products in their most attractive and saleable form. However, it is questionable how far consumer choice, depending largely on sight and taste, can be relied upon to ensure a correctly balanced and nutritionally adequate diet. The probable answer is that if we all relied, solely, on our senses and our appetites, many of us would be suffering from some form of nutritional imbalance. A serious nutritional responsibility therefore rests with the modern food manufacturer. We, at Kellogg's, are conscious of the need, not only to make the foods we produce attractive to the purse and palate, but to ensure that they make a sound contribution in nutritional terms.