Front-of-pack Nutritional Labelling

One in two European adults is overweight or obese. Figures are particularly alarming for children, with one in three overweight or obese. Obesity and its health effects have severe consequences: not only at the personal level, but also in terms of public health due to the additional burden of health care costs on government budgets. In today’s busy world, consumers make their purchase decisions in a matter of seconds. Food labels must therefore make the healthy option the easy option. All EU consumers should be able to make healthier food choices when they shop for groceries thanks to the introduction of a mandatory EU-wide front-of-pack nutritional labelling scheme with colour coding.

There is no perfect system and it is important to ensure that regular systematic reviews can allow for certain improvements to the scheme, for example on the criteria and algorithm used, to take into account developments in scientific knowledge and in the food market.

On balance, BEUC believes that evidence from research conducted in several countries shows Nutri-Score is currently the best-performing scheme in both aiding consumers to compare the nutritional quality of foods across a range of products and to make healthier purchasing choices. We would therefore advocate that the Nutri-Score system shall be the minimum basis for harmonisation of Front-of-Pack Nutrional Labelling across Europe. Moreover, where there is evidence to support that this works best in a national context, flexibility should be maintained for another scheme, such as the multiple traffic lights, to be used in addition to the Nutri-Score.