Nestle Malaysia defends Milo against viral video

Nestle Malaysia on Wednesday released a statement defending its chocolate and malt powder product, Milo, following public criticism, over its drink.

Malaysian entrepreneur Vishen Lakhiani had earlier posted a video on YouTube, titled The food industry is lying to you about health & nutrition - here's why'. Lakhiani criticised Nestle for marketing Milo as healthy, claiming that the product is made up of 40 percent sugar.

"The facts in this video are clearly misleading. We take our responsibility to produce great tasting, nutritious products very seriously," FOOD navigator-asia.com quoted Nestle Malaysia as saying.

The company further clarified that Milo was made with milk, malt (barley), and cocoa powder and contains vitamins, minerals including Vitamins B2, B3, B6, and C.

"Over 50 percent of the total sugars in Milo naturally come from milk and malt. We keep the amount of sugar we add to a minimum, adding only six grams of sugar for every 200 ml serving, which is about one teaspoon of sugar," the company added.

However, Lakhiani responded to the above claims with a second video, further breaking down the ingredients found in several Nestle products.

"Behind each Milo tin, it states add three teaspoons of Milo. Three teaspoons of Milo is roughly 9g of sugar," the entrepreneur said in his second video.

He also claimed that the amount of sugar in a glass of Milo was about 20g, which was close to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) daily recommended amount of 25g.

The company then released another statement, where nutritionist Nurul Iliani Ahmad claimed, "Milo contains only six percent of sugar, out of which three percent is natural sugar from milk and malt, per recommended serving of five teaspoons of Milo with 200 ml of hot water."

Previously, Nestle Lanka had to defend itself after the President Maithripala Sirisena had claimed that the company had increased its sugar content from 15 percent in 2012 to 16.5 percent in 2017.