EU to simplify food labels

A bid to simplify food labelling rules across Europe will be unveiled by the European Commission tomorrow.

The aim is agreement on a standard style for nutritional information on food and drink – replacing a confusing array of facts offered at the moment.

The move follows British government pressure on food companies to apply a single labelling policy voluntarily or face legislation.

At the moment firms are confusing shoppers by adopting one of three different labelling systems, warned Britain's health secretary Alan Johnson.

And as the UK's government launches an independent review to assess the odds of agreeing a single, clearer, food and drink labelling policy, Brussels is urging 27 EU member states to sign up to the same system – whichever one they pick.

A draft EU regulation drawn up after lengthy talks with consumer groups and the food and drink industry across Europe, calls for a clearer, uniform standard of information which must be compulsory on labels.

At the moment a seven-year old directive sets out what information must be included – use-by-date, list of ingredients and any special conditions of use.

But nutrition labelling is optional, with no agreed format for how such details should be displayed. Nutritional facts are only compulsory when a nutritional claim is made in the labelling, presentation or advertising of food or drink.

Meanwhile firms have been battling with the best and most user-friendly options, from the “traffic light” system, with red signalling high levels of fat, salt and sugar, to a system showing “guideline” daily amounts of key nutrients and the product’s contribution to them.

The traffic-light colour-coded system, backed by the UK’s Food Standards Agency, has been rejected by many major food outlets and manufacturers already.

But the system is backed by consumer group Which?, and is already being used by about eight retailers and 16 food and drink manufacturers.

Others are wary of picking up that option in case an EU-wide deal is done which forces them to change their packaging and adopt a different labelling scheme.

BEUC, the European umbrella group for consumer organisations, said that whatever scheme was chosen, it should be standard and understandable.

“An EU-wide scheme would help consumers to choose a healthy diet by providing at-a-glance, effective, easy-to-compare and easy-to-understand information on the levels of the key nutrients fat, saturates, sugars and salt in a food,” said BEUC Director General, Monique Goyens.

“The use of multiple colour coding would indicate whether levels of these nutrients are high, medium or low. The categories would be based on sound and independent criteria.”

She went on: “In order for a nutrition label to be meaningful to consumers, the ’big 8’ (protein, energy, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar, salt and fibre) nutrients as well as trans fatty acids must be included.

A European Commission official said any agreement had to meet the needs of the food and drink industry, as well as of consumers, with clear-cut rules which did not impose unnecessary burdens.

He added: “Research indicates that consumers are keen to have nutritional labelling, particularly on processed products.

“But there is evidence that the majority of consumers do not actually make use of these labels as they now stand. Consequently there is a general consensus that the current system of nutrition labelling is not working and that it needs to be changed.”