The French label has the best chance of becoming the basis for an EU-wide system.
(Photo: dpa)
Brussels More than every second adult European is overweight. The EU estimates that 950,000 deaths are linked to poor diet each year.
The big problem could be reduced with a relatively simple measure: an easy-to-understand graphic on food packaging should signal to consumers how the product could affect their health.
The EU Commission is currently working on specifications for this. A legislative proposal was actually announced by the end of 2022. Consumer organizations and politicians are putting pressure on Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides to present something soon.
“The labels on the food today often lie or are at least incomplete and misleading,” says Austrian chef and MEP for the Green Party, Sarah Wiener. “Compulsory labeling of the origin and content of food is the least that can be expected of the global industry.”
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Not only consumers would probably change their behavior with an easily understandable label. According to an initial impact assessment by the EU Commission, the discussion about better nutritional labeling may already have led to some food companies making their recipes healthier. “A label that is mandatory throughout Europe would be a game changer for consumers,” says Patrick Stockebrandt from the Center for European Politics.
There is controversy over whether the EU should adopt or change one of the many existing labeling systems, or whether there is a whole new approach.
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Three systems play the most important role in the discussion:
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The Nutri-Score developed by France and endorsed by many Western European governments. Its formula sets a grade from A to E for almost all packaged foods, associated with a color scale from green to red.
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Nutrinform is the competitor from Italy, which does not make any assessments, but only quickly shows the nutritional values included. The label is not particularly widespread, but the information it contains can already be found on many packaging.
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In Sweden, a green keyhole symbol identifies the healthiest products from 32 food categories. Other Scandinavian countries also rely on it.
Consumer advocates are pushing for one of these labels to be made mandatory so that unhealthy foods become more recognizable. “We have high hopes for the upcoming EU proposal for such a label,” says Emma Calvert, representative of the European consumer organization Beuc.
The criteria of the consumer advocates: The label should make products comparable in a simple way, it should be mandatory, show a color scale, refer to uniform portion sizes and be developed by independent scientists without economic interests.
Juice is a natural product, but usually contains too much sugar to get an A on the Nutri-Score.
(Photo: imago images/imagebroker)
“The Nutri-Score label ticks all of those boxes,” says Calvert. Studies in different countries have already proven its positive effect.
The major European health organizations are going in a similar direction: In any case, a label should be “interpretative”, they wrote in a letter to the members of the European Parliament. This means that the label should show an assessment of whether a food is healthy or not. Consumers should not have to derive this information themselves.
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However, various points of contention make it difficult for the EU Commission to present such a legislative proposal:
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In addition to the nutritional information, other criteria may play a role that the Nutri-Score does not take into account. “I would always prefer naturally produced fruit juice to a drink with sweeteners,” says Christine Schneider, MEP from the CDU. “But the Nutri-Score gives the juice a lower grade because of the sugar content.”
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Other foods such as cheese and olive oil also do poorly on the Nutri-Score, although they are given special consideration in the algorithm. In small amounts, they can even be beneficial to health. However, the Nutri-Score assumes that the portion sizes are always the same.
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In addition, the EU is not only working on a nutritional value label, but also on animal welfare, regional origin and ecological impact labels. “At some point you can no longer recognize the product because the pack, to put it bluntly, only consists of a label. It would then be better to work with QR codes, for example,” says Stockebrandt.
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Manufacturers are demanding that labeling remain voluntary, already with regard to systems introduced, such as the keyhole symbol in Sweden.
At the meeting of EU agriculture ministers in December, these questions led to a dispute. Many countries want to further develop the calculation of the Nutri-Score and make the label mandatory throughout Europe.
But the ministers of Italy, Greece and Portugal vehemently opposed this. Stockebrandt sees the background in national interests: “If consumers across Europe consume less oil and cheese, it will be fatal for manufacturers in southern countries,” he says.
CDU agricultural expert Schneider suggests tackling the problems digitally: “Instead of printing more and more information on the packages, customers could set their own nutritional profile in an app and be individually informed about which foods they need.”
Her colleague from the Greens sees it very differently: “There is a human right to an exclusively analogue life,” says cook Wiener. “The information must therefore always be available in analogue form and not just digitally.”
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