Traffic light labelling |
09.06.2010
A staggering 60 percent of all adults in the EU – and 20 percent of school-age children – are either overweight or obese. Millions of people suffer from high blood pressure (hypertension). These are problems that have continued to escalate in the past several years and that are costing healthcare systems billions of euros. This is why, for years now, policy-makers in Europe have been discussing how best to inform consumers about the nutritional content of foods in a transparent and understandable manner.
Nutrition labelling has never been mandatory for the vast majority of food products in the EU. However, until consumers know how much sugar, fat and salt food products contain, they will not be able to choose healthy diets and unmask supposedly healthy children’s drinks or alleged “fitness” products that are nothing but high-sugar foods in disguise. Ideally this information should be available at-a-glance.
And this is exactly what traffic light labels achieve. For every product the levels of key nutrients (fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt) are given in absolute grams per 100-gram or 100-millilitre reference value – directly on the front of the package. This system makes it easy to compare various products. To help shoppers interpret the nutritional information quickly, each of these four values is marked with one of the traffic light colours: red (for high levels), amber (medium) and green (low). This is as simple as possible and as informative as necessary on a front of package label.
A few years ago several retail chains in the UK began using traffic light labels. However, the large companies from the food industry joined forces to develop a counter model – the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) – in order to pull the plug on traffic light labelling. Now they are trying to get this labelling system introduced on the European level.
The GDA labels consist of confusing numbers and percentages. These figures can be misleading because they are not based on a 100-gram reference value but on an arbitrary portion size: for example, one half of a frozen pizza or a handful of potato crisps. Products are often made to look healthier by using unrealistically small portion sizes.
Barry wants to lose weight.
Consumer organisations, medical associations, patients’ groups and health insurance companies find the GDA labelling system misleading and are calling for the introduction of traffic light labelling. In a representative survey conducted for foodwatch by the opinion research institute TNS Emnid in Germany, 69 percent of respondents spoke out in favour of traffic light labelling. Scientific evidence also supports the value of colour-coding with the signal colours red, amber and green. The only comprehensive study ever conducted on food labelling systems in practice was commissioned by the British Food Standards Agency (FSA). This study clearly showed: A combination of colours and descriptive text (high-medium-low) is crucial for the comprehension of nutritional information.
foodwatch is campaigning for the mandatory, Europe-wide introduction of traffic light labelling, the best system according to all available evidence. If no majority can be found for mandatory traffic light labelling in the EU, then Member States should at least not be prohibited from using traffic light labelling on the national level.
Read more about traffic light labelling |
EU Parliament approves new labelling rules – deceptive labels now permitted by law
Red, amber and green for understandable information
The industry’s proposal GDA: Numbers and percents
GfK study shows: Traffic lights work, GDAs mislead
Scientific evidence supports traffic light colours
The British are making more health conscious choices with the traffic light
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