The Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) summaries now found on the front of our cereal packages in the United States and elsewhere provide consumers with a quick snapshot of how a food fits into their daily diets. It also complements the nutrition labels found on the packages' side panels.

A year ago, our company announced to great media interest and general fanfare the launch of two major initiatives to help us better meet our consumers' health and nutrition needs.

On June 12 , Kellogg publicly reported on the tremendous progress we've made over the past 12 months in adding front-of-pack nutrition labeling to our cereal packaging in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as implementing science-based nutrition criteria to change what and how we market to children ages 6-11.

"Today we're sharing the latest progress in our ongoing journey," says President and CEO David Mackay, "and we're exploring how we can continue to make a positive impact on consumer health, working together with our industry peers, government, academics, communities and stakeholders around the world."

This progress report takes the form of a press release being distributed in many areas of our Kellogg world. Additionally, our company is reaching out to share this news with key influencers such as government officials, nutrition experts, academics, consumer advocacy groups and other opinion leaders, just as we did when the initial announcement was made last year.

Here are some of the highlights:

Keeping our commitments

Our Kellogg Global Nutrient Criteria - a global standard based on a broad review of scientific reports - will be used to determine which products will be marketed to children on television and radio, in print and online.

It sets an upper threshold per serving of 200 calories or less, 2 grams or less of saturated fat, labeled 0 grams of trans fat, 230 milligrams or less of sodium and 12 grams or less of sugar.

At the time of our announcement last year, about 50 percent of our products marketed to children around the world met those standards. By the end of this year, however, that number will have risen to about 70 percent, thanks to the efforts of our Research, Quality & Technology (RQT) colleagues around the world. They've been hard at work developing new products that meet or exceed the Criteria, as well as reformulating a number of existing offerings to improve their nutrition credentials.

Importantly, as we pledged last year, any products that still do not meet the Criteria by Jan. 1, 2009, will no longer be marketed to children under 12. In fact, Kellogg recently updated our Worldwide Marketing & Communication Guidelines - which govern all of our marketing communications activities globally - to reflect the Criteria's commitments. (Visit Senior K.com in the coming weeks to learn more about the revised Marketing & Communication Guidelines.)

We also committed last year to including healthy lifestyle messaging on our brand websites that are targeted primarily to kids under 12.

We subsequently implemented "Get Your Move On," a feature that interrupts a user's website activity after 15 minutes of screen time. It then encourages children to be active through messaging, physical activities such as the "Push-Up Challenge" and links to other sites promoting healthy lifestyles including those for the American Youth Soccer Organization, VERB, Little League World Series and Girls on the Run.

Labeling and lifestyle

Today's progress report also heralds the fact that we've successfully completed rolling out Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) labels on the front of our cereal packages in U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as in Korea.

In addition, we conducted comprehensive consumer education campaigns about GDA labeling in those markets.

"We're proud of our pioneering role in launching GDAs in Europe, Australia and many other markets around the world," says Celeste Clark, senior vice president, Global Nutrition and Corporate Affairs, in the press release. "We continue to support the adoption of GDAs as well as participate in ongoing dialogue with industry and stakeholders on uniformity in labeling."

Our ongoing efforts to promote healthy lifestyles are also highlighted. The press release mentions a $400,000 contribution that the Kellogg's Corporate Citizenship Fund recently made to further its support of Action for Healthy Kids.

The funding will be used for grants to assist Action for Healthy Kids State Teams with the implementation of school wellness policies. (Details about our partnership with Action for Healthy Kids will be on Senior K.com.)