Four years ago, the Food Standards Agency recommended the creation of a set of principles to apply to front-of-pack labelling, to help consumers make quick, healthy and informed choices regarding nutrition. Although the majority of the food industry now adheres to some form of FOP labelling, there are still no set principles – making the conflicting labelling somewhat confusing for consumers. For example, altthough all FOP labels reflect the same nutrients – salt, sugars, fat and saturated fat – various schemes use colours other than the recommended green-yellow-red traffic light system. This means it takes longer for cosumers to compare product at a glance, defeating part of the point of clear FOP labelling.

However, in 2009, in independent study discovered the most popular and ease-to-use combination of labelling was the traffic light system with the words ‘high, medium and low’ and % Guideline Daily Amounts. Hence, this week the Food Standards Agency will dicuss proposals for a unified, but flexible system of FOP labelling that will require manufacturers and retailers to use a combination of these labelling techniques. Chief Executive, Tim Smith, said the FSA “appreciate and understand that food businesses are starting from different positions. Our proposals respond to what consumers want but also provide some flexibility for business.”

A series of focus groups have been conducted across England and Scotland, looking into people’s views and awareness of food labelling. The findings of these groups were published by the Food Standards Agency today and showed that people have a high awareness of front-of-pack labelling, feeling it was an important way of making informed choices about food, as well as saving time.

However, there was an agreement amongst the forum members that a unified system of front-of-pack labelling would be of great help. The different schemes used by different retailers to display the same information not only makes comparisons more difficult, they claimed, but also sheds doubt on the trustworthiness of the information itself. They agreed that a single way of displaying the information would be quicker to compare, easier to understand and more trustworthy than the current variety of systems.

The forums decided the most important elements of font-of-pack labelling include the amount of each nutrient in grams, the percentage of the Guideline Daily Amount this amount equates to and the traffic light system for quick decision-making. An example of such a label could be as follows:

Labelling