The information that should be given on packaging is feeding divisions of opinion.
What to put on the front of a packet has become one of the most controversial issues for food regulators.
n one corner is the food industry, which has put its weight behind a system based on guideline daily amounts (GDA) – labels that show the percentages of fat, salt, sugar and calories per serving. In the other corner are health campaigners, who prefer a traffic-light scheme – colour-coded warnings that tell consumers to go easy on ‘red' foods (high in fat and sugar) and eat lots of healthy ‘green' foods. Supporters of colour-coding say their system is easier for consumers to understand, while GDA promoters argue that colour-coding unfairly penalises some foods as ‘bad'.
Regulation
The European Commission became involved in 2008, when it published a draft regulation on food labelling. The Commission managed to avoid taking sides by leaving decisions on specific schemes to member states – although it did have some positive words for GDAs in the proposal. But the Commission's plan that energy, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar and salt should be listed on the front of a pack in text at least three millimetres high has met opposition.
Renate Sommer, a German centre-right MEP who is drafting the European Parliament's response on the proposal, has accused the Commission of coming up with “unworkable” plans that will overwhelm consumers with information and overload businesses with costs.
Sommer has succeeded in delaying debate on the law until after the Europan Parliament elections and she plans to draft a new report on the proposal in June. But she faces a battle in the Parliament: Socialists, Greens and some Liberals want to insert colour-coded labels into the regulation, even though this is unlikely to win support from national governments.
Something of interest for all sides is a new study on ‘front of pack' labels, commissioned by the UK government's Food Standards Agency. The report concluded that the most effective labels are those combining GDAs, traffic-lights and text. Seven out of ten shoppers understood these hybrid labels, according to the research. The researchers found that people are confused and exasperated by the different labels they find on supermarket shelves. The pale blues and greens used on some GDA labels can suggest the package contains a product which is healthy, which is not necessarily the case. Other shoppers failed to realise that red, amber and green labels had any meaning.
But one of the most sobering findings concerned the relevance of the labels. The study found that shoppers with an interest in healthy eating used the labels, while those who were less concious of healthy diets did not. Even when the battle of the labels is over, their impact on public health could be limited.
SOURCE
What to put on the front of a packet has become one of the most controversial issues for food regulators.
n one corner is the food industry, which has put its weight behind a system based on guideline daily amounts (GDA) – labels that show the percentages of fat, salt, sugar and calories per serving. In the other corner are health campaigners, who prefer a traffic-light scheme – colour-coded warnings that tell consumers to go easy on ‘red' foods (high in fat and sugar) and eat lots of healthy ‘green' foods. Supporters of colour-coding say their system is easier for consumers to understand, while GDA promoters argue that colour-coding unfairly penalises some foods as ‘bad'.
Regulation
The European Commission became involved in 2008, when it published a draft regulation on food labelling. The Commission managed to avoid taking sides by leaving decisions on specific schemes to member states – although it did have some positive words for GDAs in the proposal. But the Commission's plan that energy, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar and salt should be listed on the front of a pack in text at least three millimetres high has met opposition.
Renate Sommer, a German centre-right MEP who is drafting the European Parliament's response on the proposal, has accused the Commission of coming up with “unworkable” plans that will overwhelm consumers with information and overload businesses with costs.
Sommer has succeeded in delaying debate on the law until after the Europan Parliament elections and she plans to draft a new report on the proposal in June. But she faces a battle in the Parliament: Socialists, Greens and some Liberals want to insert colour-coded labels into the regulation, even though this is unlikely to win support from national governments.
Something of interest for all sides is a new study on ‘front of pack' labels, commissioned by the UK government's Food Standards Agency. The report concluded that the most effective labels are those combining GDAs, traffic-lights and text. Seven out of ten shoppers understood these hybrid labels, according to the research. The researchers found that people are confused and exasperated by the different labels they find on supermarket shelves. The pale blues and greens used on some GDA labels can suggest the package contains a product which is healthy, which is not necessarily the case. Other shoppers failed to realise that red, amber and green labels had any meaning.
But one of the most sobering findings concerned the relevance of the labels. The study found that shoppers with an interest in healthy eating used the labels, while those who were less concious of healthy diets did not. Even when the battle of the labels is over, their impact on public health could be limited.
SOURCE
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