Food firms slam local government labelling criticism

03-Jun-2014 - Last updated on 04-Jun-2014 at 09:47 GMT

Food and drink firms have hit back at local government claims they are helping to fuel the obesity crisis by failing to back traffic light food labelling

Food and drink manufacturers have rejected claims from the Local Government Association (LGA) that they are contributing to Britain’s obesity crisis by failing to back traffic light labelling.

The LGA claimed the plethora of different food labelling schemes was confusing shoppers and making it harder to identify which foods have high levels of fat, salt and sugar.

“The Department of Health introduced a front of pack ‘traffic light’ system last year to tackle the problem, but only 60% of food and drink manufacturers have signed up to the voluntary scheme,” it said.

The Food Manufacture Group is staging a free, one-hour webinar to explore the solutions to the obesity crisis at 11am on Thursday July 3. See the end of this article for more details.

Responding to the LGA’s attack, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said the organisation had misunderstood EU labelling changes, due to be introduced later this year.

‘Hasn’t understood the forthcoming changes’

“It’s disappointing the LGA hasn’t understood the forthcoming changes to food labels throughout Europe,” said Terry Jones, FDF director of communications.

The Food Information for Consumers Regulation – which comes into force on December 13 2014 – means there will be a consistent format for front-of-pack (FoP) nutrition labelling in the UK, with some companies also adding colours to create a hybrid label, said Jones.

“As part of our commitment to make a positive contribution to improving public health, FDF members have voluntarily provided FoP nutrition information for many years and have implemented FoP nutrition labelling consistently across Europe.”

The FDF said it was supporting improvements in public health by helping consumers to understand and use the new labels. “That’s why FDF has worked with leading dieticians to produce a new free toolkit, ‘Food and drink labelling: a tool to encourage healthier eating’, which provides health professionals with a breakdown of forthcoming changes to nutrition, allergen and ingredient labelling, and offers tips on the best way to communicate information to patients and consumers.”

But Katie Hall, chair of the LGA’s Community and Wellbeing Board, said food manufacturing giants – including Kraft Foods, Kellogg, Coca-Cola and Heinz – should sign up to the traffic light food labelling system, in order to minimise the obesity crisis, which costs the National Health Service more than £5bn each year.

‘Fuelling the obesity crisis’

“The ‘traffic light’ food labelling system is clear, effective and popular with shoppers. The problem is that many food and drink giants have not signed up to it,” said Hall. “This means shoppers have to contend with a bewildering number of different systems, many of which are totally confusing. As a result, shoppers are unwittingly buying products which are laden with fat, salt and sugar, which is fuelling the obesity crisis.”

The Food Manufacture Group has teamed up with the Institute of Food Science & Technology to assemble an expert line-up of speakers to ensure a balanced debate on the subject at 11am on Thursday July 3.

The online seminar – Obesity and health: the big fat, sugar and salt debate – will move the debate away from vested interest, special pleading to a more secure footing based on independent interpretation of sound scientific evidence.

Taking part will be speakers from the National Institute for Health Research, the FDF, Consensus Action on Salt & Health and Action on Sugar and Leeds University.

Register for your free place here. You can also submit a question to our expert panel by emailing Michael.stones@wrbm.com.