Saturday 4 July 2009

Food Standards Agency Board agrees principles for front of pack signposting labelling

Thursday 9 March 2006

Ref: 2006/0636

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) Board today agreed its recommendation for a consistent approach to front of pack labelling that will help make it easier for people to choose a healthier diet.

The Agency's recommendations are based on four core principles. These have been developed as a result of extensive consumer research and feedback from supermarkets, manufacturers, consumer and public health groups.

Sainsbury's and Waitrose are the first retailers to use the recommended colour-coded approach on products and Asda will follow shortly. The Agency will continue to encourage other supermarkets and manufacturers to adopt the four core principles as the basis for their voluntary front of pack schemes. The Agency will work with food businesses and consumers to monitor and evaluate take-up and impact of the scheme.

Deirdre Hutton, Chair of the Food Standards Agency said: 'We all lead busy lives, so making healthier choices when shopping needs to be quick and easy. Developing a consistent way of clearly highlighting how much fat, sugar and salt a food contains will make it simpler for people to put healthy eating advice into practice when shopping.

'The evidence of buying patterns is that people are looking for healthier foods and they have told us that traffic light colours are key to helping them understand and use front of pack food labels. The industry has moved a long way and we warmly welcome, in particular, commitments from Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Asda to provide such clear information. We want to see more supermarkets and manufacturers adopting our core principles as this type of labelling will be effective in helping their customers to improve their health.'

The agreed FSA core principles will allow supermarkets and manufacturers to develop their own labelling with an individual look and feel that appeals to their shoppers. The FSA Board recommended that front of pack labelling schemes should:

provide separate information on fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt
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 per portion of product

Extensive Agency consumer research shows that many people find the nutritional information currently found on the back of pack difficult to use. Although several supermarkets and manufacturers have already developed their own front of pack schemes, people say that they want a consistent approach endorsed by an authoritative, independent and trusted body such as the FSA. Published consumer research has shown that the use of traffic light colours is key to helping people understand whether a food has high, medium or low levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt and take charge of their own health.

Christian Cull, Waitrose Marketing Director, said: 'Waitrose and our customers feel that a consistent approach, as proposed by the FSA, will be the best way to allow consumers to make informed decisions about what they eat.

'Our customers wanted an easy-to-follow, transparent labelling system and traffic light colours - as recommended by the FSA - was their preferred approach. It also leaves plenty of room on the back of pack for all the information on Guideline Daily Amounts that our customers expect from us.'

Justin King, Sainsbury's Chief Executive, said: 'We support the use of a labelling system which uses traffic light colours. It is the simplest and clearest way of giving customers the information they are looking for. We launched our own Wheel of Health labelling system, which is in line with the FSA's recommendations, over a year ago. The Wheel of Health is now on over 1,200 of our products and has proved very popular with our customers who tell us it helps them to identify healthier choices at a glance.'

Sue Malcolm, ASDA's Nutrition Manager, said: 'Customers don't want thousands of different types of nutritional labels in their favourite stores, that's why we are backing the FSA's proposals to get nutritional information across in a clear, consistent, simple and informative way.

'We see this as a combination of colour coding coupled to percentage GDA declarations and will be working closely with the FSA and other bodies to make this happen.'

Notes to editors

The scheme has been developed by the Agency as part of the Government's White Paper initiative to help make healthier food choices easier. The Board's decision follows over 18 months of extensive consumer research and on-going discussion with the food industry, public health groups and consumer groups. The aim has been to find which type of front of pack labelling will best provide shoppers with 'at a glance' information to help them make informed choices about their food quickly and easily.

History of front of pack development
In July 2004 the Agency committed to development of a simple front of pack labelling scheme.

In November 2004 the first phase of consumer research considered people's preferences for five different approaches to signposting - a simple traffic light, an extended traffic light, a GDA based scheme, a multiple traffic light and a healthy eating logo. The research showed that people felt a front of pack labelling scheme would make it easier for them to assess the nutritional content of foods and make healthier choices. The preferred schemes were simple and multiple traffic lights.

At a stakeholder meeting in December 2004 it was agreed that these formats and an optimised GDA based scheme should be examined in consumer performance research.

A signposting advisory group made up from representatives from food manufacturers, retailers and consumer organisations was then formed to contribute to the development of further research work to optimise the GDA format and advise on consumer performance research methodology.

In March 2005 we tested a number of GDA based schemes. This showed that people preferred a colour coded GDA option which included per serving and GDA data presented in a numerical format. Colour coding was considered to be useful in helping to interpret the numerical information. Percentages and bar charts were considered but were not the preferred option.

A consultation was also published in March 2005 on proposals for quantitative performance research methodology.

In June 2005 four possible schemes, the Simple Traffic Light, the Multiple Traffic Light, Colour code GDA and a monochrome GDA were tested with over 2,600 people. In one to one interviews people were asked to identify the level of fat, saturated fat, salt or sugar in an individual products and, to compare levels of nutrients in pairs of products. Respondents were also asked which signposting format they preferred.

The results of the quantitative and qualitative research were published in November 2005 and a public consultation on a voluntary front of pack signpost labelling scheme was launched. The consultation closed in February 2006 and responses were reviewed.

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Food Standards Agency Board agrees principles for front of pack signposting labelling

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