The Children’s Food Campaign is calling for a single simple system of front-of-pack nutritional labelling which would enable consumers to see at a glance what’s in the food they eat, and help them make healthier choices.
Consumer confusion
Currently there are two main types of front of pack nutritional labelling in use in the UK: traffic lights and GDAs.
The traffic light labelling scheme was developed by the independent Food Standards Agency (FSA) and presents the amount of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in the food with easy to understand red, amber and green traffic light colours according to the amount of each nutrient in a 100g serving. This system is used by retailers such as Sainsbury’s, Asda, Waitrose and the Co-op; and food manufactures like McCain and the New Covent Garden Soup Co.
Food manufactures like Kellogg’s, and retailers like Tesco and Morrison’s, have introduced an alternative based on the percentage in each food of someone’s Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) of a nutrient.
Independent research commissioned by the FSA has shown that having two different schemes is confusing to consumers, making it difficult to compare products which use different systems. We therefore need one scheme that is used by all manufacturers and retailers on products sold in the UK.
Why traffic lights?
The FSA found that the scheme that best enabled people to make healthier choices was one that used traffic light colours.
This evidence supports a common-sense view that traffic light labels don’t just provide information to consumers, but allow them to interpret it in a simple way, and one that can be recognised and evaluated at a glance.
Research suggests that people are most likely to make use of front of pack nutritional labelling in certain situations, one of which is when shopping for children. This demonstrates the importance of having an easily understood scheme which helps parents to make healthy choices for their children. And as well as helping shoppers, this kind of system could be used to teach children about making healthy food choices.
Children's Food Campaign: Campaigning for policy changes so that all children can easily eat sustainable and healthy food.
