New and easier food labelling guides

Fri, 10 Feb 2006
 
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Big changes are about to be made by food manufacturers in the way they print nutritional information on food packets, making it easier to choose which foods to buy.

An agreement has been made by six of Britain’s leading food companies to print the information so shoppers can easily read them.

Currently most firms display information on the back of the item. Some products such as Walkers crips, Kit Kat chocolate bars and Dairylea cheese will be using the new labelling format.

However Kellogg’s, Kraft, Nestle, Pepsi Co and Danone will use a system based on ‘guideline daily amounts’ (GDAs). Unilever, whose products include Flora, Birds Eye Peas will also use the easy to see format.

The new format labels will show in percentages what the product contains with regard to calories, fat, sugar, and salt. The figures are all based on what an adult should consume in one day.

Other smaller products like chocolate bars, will only display the calorie content on the front. This move may prevent the introduction of an alternative scheme. The Foods Standards Agency (FSA) carried out research into food labelling and they gave their backing to two designs. One of the designs is based on the colours of ‘traffic lights’ – red indicates high levels of sugar, salt and fat, green shows low levels of these.

However, food companies criticised the traffic lights as too simplistic, saying it could unfairly demonise certain products.

The supermarkets are divided. Sainsbury’s prefer the traffic light scheme but Tesco prefer the GDA’s. The FSA will make their final decision next month. According to the Food and Drink Association, the GDA’s were the best way of informing consumers.

The consumer group Which? said, "We think this is going to add to the confusion because manufacturers seem to be seeing this more as a marketing opportunity rather than taking part in the FSA consultation."

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