Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling - The UK Experience.ppt

Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling - The UK Experience Rosemary Hignett Food Standards Agency Championing Public health Nutrition Ottawa, 22/23 October 2008 Why the Need for Front of Pack Signpost Labelling? Rising levels of obesity Consumers eat too much: saturated fat added sugar salt Why the Need for Front of Pack Signpost Labelling? For many years UK has had a high level of back of pack nutrition labelling Yet many UK consumers still find this information difficult to find, read and use and want a more prominent at a glance approach  Agency Consumer Research (2004 - 2006) – to inform development of UK recommendations Preference - what signpost formats appeal to consumers? Performance - how do consumers understand the information provided in the signpost? Products for which categories is this information most useful? .uk/foodlabelling/signposting/siognpostlabelresearch/ Formats rejected on preference GDA formats rejected Formats for performance test Main Findings of Agency Research In summary, consumers: wanted front of pack labelling, especially on certain composite processed foods liked separate information on key nutrients found traffic light colour coding easy to understand and use wanted additional numerical information on amount of nutrient in a serving preferred formats with traffic light colours Agency Signposting Recommendations Provide information on 7 categories of processed foods based on four core principles: Provide separate information on fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt. Information on calories and/or GDAs can also be given as an optional extra. Use red, amber or green colour coding to indicate whether levels of these nutrients are high, medium or low. Use nutritional criteria developed by the FSA to determine the colour code. Give information on the levels of nutrients in a portion of the product. Adopters and Supporters of Traffic Light Labelling Approach has been adopted by: 8 retailers 26 manufacturers 5 service