The Food Standards Agency (FSA) released its long-awaited report following its research into front-of-pack nutritional label-ling last week. It did not, however, receive a warm welcome, being greeted with disdain by many food companies and retailers.
A culmination of nearly 18 months of research into the various schemes, the report recommends a system using a combination of traffic lights, guideline daily amounts (GDAs) and the words 'high', 'medium' and 'low'.
The study concludes that, although consumers understand each of the different labels in isolation, the current range of formats varies too much to be comprehensible.
It would be hard for anyone to dispute this finding. While some brands, such as McCain and Asda, already use a scheme close to the hybrid recommended by the FSA, they are in the minority. Most food brands such as those owned by Unilever, Kellogg and Nestle, prefer to communicate the nutritional values of their products using GDAs.
Tesco uses a GDA scheme based on a colour code, but this does not correspond to the traffic-light system. The FSA's research highlighted that non-standard schemes such as this are especially confusing, as consumers are unsure as to what the colours signify.
Alternative schemes
Proponents of the traffic-light system argue that there is no excuse for brands not to implement this scheme on their packaging.
'Any company that doesn't adopt the traffic-light system, the public's favour-ite, will be exposed as putting their profits before their customers' health,' warns Christine Haigh, co-coordinator of the Children's Food ±±¾©Èü³µpk10.
Paul Kelly, Asda corporate affairs director, calls for other food retailers and manufacturers to 'end the debate, listen to the customers and commit to the dual-labelling scheme'.
However, the chances of this occur-ring without compulsion are slim. Chris Wermann, Kellogg's European regional corporate affairs director, says the traffic-light system's use of 100g measures prevents it from being a useful guide for products that are consumed in smaller servings.
Wermann also points out that food labelling is governed by the EU, which is currently drawing up regulations, and where GDA is the preferred system. '[GDA] should remain the base criteria for nutritional information,' he says.
The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) makes a similar point. Despite the FSA's insistence that the study is the most robust produced on the subject, Julian Hunt, communications director for the FDF, dismisses it as 'only one research study'.
'The European Food Safety Authority published a report that backs the science underpinning GDAs,' says Hunt. 'At the end of April, the first results of a major EU project on label-ling were published, which clearly demonstrated that GDAs is the most widely-used scheme across Europe.'
As to whether the FSA would resort to statutory powers to force food firms to adopt its recommended system, a spokeswoman says the next steps will be discussed at its next board meeting.
The possibility remains, however, that such machinations could be a waste of time if there is a change of government next year. After all, the Conservative Party has stated its support for the GDA scheme, and shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley used the release of the FSA report to reiterate this.
'We have consistently called for a simple, unified food-labelling scheme to be developed, to go on the front of food packaging,' he says. 'We are clear that it should be based on providing GDA indicators of things such as fat and salt content. It could also include traffic-light indicators if producers would like it to.'
So if the FSA embarks on another consultation, as is expected, it might prove to be solely academic.