food labelling

I like this article – it suggest some coherence in the food labelling agenda. What we now need is an approach to labelling which clearly flags up local food in supermarket outlets. Just a pipe-dream I suspect as it is all likely to be deemed to complex to justify -however at some stage the supermarkets will start to get on the local food bandwaggon as the alternative “real food” agenda grows – mark my words!

The article itself tells us:

Health campaigners today welcomed a new Government-backed food labelling system which will standardise the baffling array of front-of-pack designs which have confused shoppers for years.

All the major supermarket chains bar Iceland have indicated that they will use the scheme – announced by the Department of Health this morning – on everything from breakfast cereals to pizzas from next year.

Under the scheme, colours will show ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ levels of  fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar as well as the percentages of daily recommended of the nutrients found in each product.

The scheme is effectively a compromise between the coloured ‘traffic light’ system developed  by the Food Standards Agency and adopted by most supermarkets and the rival GDA (Guideline Daily Amount) favoured by some retailers and manufacturers.

Some chains such as Sainsbury’s Marks & Spencer and Waitrose have put the FSA’s traffic light labels (showing red, amber and green for, respectively, high, medium and low levels of nutrients) on products for years, but others such as Tesco resisted the scheme and used GDA labels.