Yesterday’s report that the Government will be considering a ‘traffic light’ labelling system for food products has been slammed by the food and drinks industry.
The Government proposal suggested colour-coding products according to how healthy they are, but the food industry has said the move will not help in the fight against obesity.
In a report in The Times today The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said the ‘traffic light’ labelling system would not help consumers to make informed dietary decisions and would unfairly place foods such as cheese, which is high in fat but also contains calcium and other nutrients, on the ‘red’ alert list.
This argument has also been put forward by The Grocer in its Junk the Spin campaign, which calls for the Government to work with the food and drink industry to come up with new ways of improving the nation’s health.
In its September 25 issue The Grocer expressed its fears that under the traffic light scheme would mean that cheese, orange juice, full cream milk and brown bread could also be tagged with red danger stickers.
Editor Julian Hunt said: “It seems our campaign has not come soon enough, This is a daft idea and should be killed at birth.”
The FDF also gave warning that any mandatory changes to food labelling in the UK would have to be approved by the European Union first.
Other food manufacturers have criticised the scheme, believing that the obesity and health issue can be tackled in other ways.
Speaking to The Times, a spokesman for Cadbury Schweppes said: We don’t think that traffic light labelling is necessarily useful, we think it can be confusing to consumers. The (obesity) issue is far more complex than something that’s going to be addressed by that.”
The Government proposal suggested colour-coding products according to how healthy they are, but the food industry has said the move will not help in the fight against obesity.
In a report in The Times today The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said the ‘traffic light’ labelling system would not help consumers to make informed dietary decisions and would unfairly place foods such as cheese, which is high in fat but also contains calcium and other nutrients, on the ‘red’ alert list.
This argument has also been put forward by The Grocer in its Junk the Spin campaign, which calls for the Government to work with the food and drink industry to come up with new ways of improving the nation’s health.
In its September 25 issue The Grocer expressed its fears that under the traffic light scheme would mean that cheese, orange juice, full cream milk and brown bread could also be tagged with red danger stickers.
Editor Julian Hunt said: “It seems our campaign has not come soon enough, This is a daft idea and should be killed at birth.”
The FDF also gave warning that any mandatory changes to food labelling in the UK would have to be approved by the European Union first.
Other food manufacturers have criticised the scheme, believing that the obesity and health issue can be tackled in other ways.
Speaking to The Times, a spokesman for Cadbury Schweppes said: We don’t think that traffic light labelling is necessarily useful, we think it can be confusing to consumers. The (obesity) issue is far more complex than something that’s going to be addressed by that.”
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