Coronary heart disease

The issue

Fortunately most non-communicable diseases, meaning those not spread by viruses or bacteria, are preventable. The likelihood of contracting them can be minimised by diet and lifestyle. So health professionals are constantly looking for new ways to promote healthy lifestyles, particularly those that don't require making big changes to eating habits and that let people enjoy food that tastes great. 

A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed France, Spain, Italy and Greece to be among the world's top seven healthy countries. It's just one in a long line of reports linking the traditional Mediterranean diet to good health, and showing that people living in Mediterranean regions have higher life expectancy and lower rates of age-related diseases than other parts of the developed world.

The Mediterranean diet is easy to integrate into other food traditions and because it tastes good, people retain their motivation to follow it. So encouraging consumers to adopt a diet with a traditional Mediterranean approach is one strategy that could have a big impact on improving people's health.

The response

Bertolli is a brand that has been around since the 19th Century, but it's ideally placed to address some of the issues associated with 21st Century diets. The brand promotes an Italian-inspired approach to eating, not only using ingredients traditionally used in the Mediterranean diet, but also inspiring people to view cooking, eating and mealtimes as enjoyable, sociable occasions. 

The high proportion of mediterranean ingredients used in Bertolli, specifically vegetables, grains and herbs, are rich in carbohydrates, fibre, minerals and vitamins. Bertolli is also the world's biggest supplier of olive oil, which is high in monounsaturated fatty acids. 

This style of cuisine satisfies the modern consumer's demand for healthy options that taste great and are convenient to prepare. But some habits are hard to break, and in these situations Bertolli takes the Italian tradition as a starting point from which new products are developed. For example in some European markets where people like cooking with margarine, Bertolli has successfully launched an olive oil-based liquid margarine.

It addition to its TV commercials which use humour to illustrate the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, Bertolli's activation strategies encourage people's interest in good food. For example the Bertolli website in Holland includes dinner-party meal ideas that friends and families can prepare together, while in Germany the brand encouraged consumers to attend cooking classes in over 2 000 local Italian restaurants.

These activities add up to a broad-based health education programme. Other initiatives include: the production of brochures explaining the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, developed for dietitians and nutritionists, journalists have been taken to Italy to see how olive oil is produced, and new print communications on the benefits of a Mediterranean lifestyle are being developed for consumers. 

In the future, the brand will develop more products that encourage people to add fresh ingredients and take pleasure in preparing meals.