General Mills, Minneapolis, MN, has improved the health profile of products comprising 25% of its U.S. retail sales in fiscal 2010, the company announced. Improvements have included adding whole grains, fiber and calcium, and reducing calories, sugar, sodium and trans fats.

“Our goal is to provide nutritious foods that—when combined with exercise and activity—can help people live longer, healthier lives,” said Marc Belton, executive vice president, global strategy, growth and marketing innovation for General Mills. “And we’re by no means finished. Consumers are responding very strongly to great-tasting, healthy foods, and we’re going to continue to push the envelope on improving the nutrition profile of our many products.”

The improvements are tracked and quantified using General Mills’ “Health Metric,” created by the General Mills Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition, as a way to encourage and measure the company’s progress on nutrition and health improvements. Since 2005, when General Mills first implemented its Health Metric, the nutrition profiles of more than 500 different General Mills products have been improved in one or more of the following ways:

1. Increasing beneficial nutrients, including vitamins, minerals and fiber;

2. Reducing calories, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar or sodium;

3. Formulating products to include at least a half serving of whole grain, fruit, vegetables or low or nonfat dairy;

4. Meeting the FDA guidelines for a product to be considered healthy.

General Mills furthered its commitment in December, announcing that it had already reduced sugar in cereals advertised to children to 11 grams of sugar or less per serving, and committed to reduce sugar on all cereals advertised to children under 12 to single-digit levels of grams of sugar per serving. A similar commitment by Cereal Partners Worldwide, General Mills’ cereal joint venture outside the U.S., extended the sugar reduction initiative globally to 130 countries.

In April, General Mills announced an acceleration of its goals to reduce sodium by 20% across multiple product categories by 2015. The company also detailed successful reductions already implemented on a number of products, including a 16% sodium reduction in both Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios, a more than 25% sodium reduction in select Progresso soups, and a 36% sodium reduction across the Chex Snack Mix line.

“Every day on every product the health metric motivates us to think about what positive health and nutrition changes can be made big or small,” said Susan Crockett, PhD, RD, FADA, and leader of the General Mills Bell Institute. “Importantly, our new and improved products still deliver the great taste consumers love. But equally important, we are also making products healthier — and our ability to deliver improvements on products representing 25 percent of our 2010 U.S. Retail sales is a real accomplishment.”

General Mills continues to make health and wellness a priority across its product portfolio. Nearly 60% of the company’s U.S. Retail sales are comprised of products that have been nutritionally improved since 2005.