Asda, Which? and five other organisations have written to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) Board urging it to stick with its own evidence and continue to recommend a single front-of-pack labelling scheme.
The signatories, including Cancer Research UK, CASH, Diabetes UK, National Heart Forum and Sustain, are concerned that while the FSA’s own research has proved that a single front-of-pack labelling scheme works best for consumers, under proposals being discussed by the agency’s board today, food companies would be allowed to press ahead with their own labelling schemes.
Which? chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith said: “The FSA’s own research shows that a combined single nutrition labelling scheme will work best for consumers, so we can’t fathom why they have suddenly decided to disregard its own evidence.
“By backing down now, the agency is undermining the credibility of its research. If the FSA is serious about helping people make healthy choices then it needs to stick to its guns and continue to push for a single nutrition labelling scheme.”
Although the FSA says the aim is to eventually have a single scheme combining traffic lights, high, medium and low and % GDA ‘over time’, companies would be allowed to provide just two of these elements under the proposed new scheme
In May 2009, The Nutrition Signposting Evaluation concluded that:
A single front of pack (FOP) scheme would be most helpful for consumers as the presence of multiple schemes can cause confusion Evidence shows that the strongest FOP label in terms of consumer understanding and preference is one which combines use of the words ‘high, medium and low’, traffic light colours and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) in addition to levels of nutrient in a product There is generally a high understanding of FOP labels, even among those who don’t use them, which suggests that raising awareness of a single scheme could encourage increased use of FOP labels when buying food
According to Which? research carried out in July 2006, 73% of people say it would be confusing if different firms used different labelling schemes.
