Fight the Obesity Epidemic

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TRAFFIC LIGHT LABELS

Busy shoppers need a simple food labelling system so they can easily identify healthy and unhealthy food. Food companies are resisting a traffic light system on the front of packages. They don’t want red danger labels on their products.

A recent food labelling review favours traffic lights in some cases. A decision is expected later this year.

Food labelling systems

Traffic lights: the best food labelling system

Shoppers need a simple guide on the front of food packaging that helps them to quickly see how a product fits into a healthy diet. The best answer is a traffic light food labelling system using green, amber and red symbols.

• Green means that the product can form a regular part of a healthy diet
• Red means that the product should be avoided, or consumed only occasionally
• Amber covers products in between green and red.

Why we like the traffic light system

Health researchers and professionals in both New Zealand and Australia are arguing strongly in favour of a mandatory traffic light scheme. Some reasons are:

• There is substantial research support for traffic lights as better than other options in helping shoppers identify more healthy food and drink choices
• The scheme is relatively simple and easy to understand, partly because shoppers are aware of the significance of green, amber and red as traffic signals
• The simplicity of traffic lights is ideal when used in conjunction with the detailed information in the existing Nutrition Information Panel
• Traffic lights are particularly suited for shoppers who have low numeracy and literacy skills, a group at a high risk for developing obesity
• Health professionals can readily give nutritional advice to patients, such as looking for green lights for salt if they have high blood pressure
• Manufacturers will be strongly motivated to reformulate products to attract green and avoid red lights.

An analysis published in 2010 shows that traffic light labelling is likely to be cost-effective in reducing health consequences of obesity.

Traffic lights in the United Kingdom

A traffic light system developed by the Food Standards Authority is operating in the United Kingdom. Under the scheme, four symbols indicate whether a product is low (green), medium (amber) or high (red) for total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. Variations on the format are allowed.

These Food Standards Authority pictures show examples of traffic light labels that meet the Authority’s guidelines. Healthier products have more green symbols and fewer red.

Published with permission from the Food Standards Authority

While some British manufacturers and supermarkets have taken up the scheme, many are vigorously opposed. No one wants red lights on their products.

The voluntary nature of the British traffic light system has seriously limited its usefulness. For this reason health groups in New Zealand and Australia support introduction of a mandatory scheme.

Nutrition Information Panels are too complex and time consuming

Food and drinks sold in New Zealand and Australia contains substantial useful information in the Nutrition Information Panel. This describes the amount per serving and the amount per hundred grams of energy, fats, sugars, sodium and other components of the product. But:

• The Nutrition Information Panel is typically in small and difficult-to-read print
• It usually can’t be read without lifting the product from the shelf
• Most shoppers can’t readily interpret information such as “960 kJ of energy per serving”, or “47.6g of sugar per 100g”
• Most supermarket shoppers don’t have time to study detailed information, even if they can make sense of it.

The Nutrition Information Panel is complex. Reading it is too time-consuming to help most shoppers wanting to make healthy food choices. It needs to be supplemented with a simple system such as traffic lights.

Pick the Tick has serious limitations

In New Zealand the National Heart Foundation’s ‘Pick the Tick’ scheme is designed to help shoppers make more healthy food choices.

Pick the Tick has some serious limitations compared to a mandatory traffic light scheme:

• The Tick only means that a product is a more healthy choice than some other choices within its category. A meat pie with the Tick is more healthy than some other meat pies, but this does not make regular consumption of meat pies carrying the Tick a healthy choice
• Many shoppers believe that the Tick means that the product is a healthy choice when it may not be
• The Tick is only on some products, since manufacturers must apply and pay to use it. Other products without the Tick may be just as healthy as those with it.
• The Tick is not generally found on cheaper products – those usually purchased by groups most at risk from unhealthy eating – even though these cheaper products may be relatively healthy.

Percentage Daily Intake – the food industry’s favourite

The food industry in both New Zealand and Australia is opposed to traffic lights. Instead, the industry is promoting the Daily Intake Guide system, generally known as the Percentage Daily Intake (%DI) scheme.

As a minimum, the scheme requires participating manufacturers to display the energy component of a product in terms of the percentage of 8700 kilijoules contributed by a serving. They may also display comparable information about protein, total fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugars and sodium.

The New Zealand Food and Grocery Council website has a description of the Percentage Daily Intake scheme.

Percentage Daily Intake – an inferior labelling system

A body of research shows that Percentage Daily Intake is likely to be much less helpful for assisting shoppers to make healthy food choices than is traffic lights.

Many health advocates believe the scheme is very inferior to traffic lights in assisting food shoppers to make healthy choices. Reasons include:

• Research favours traffic lights over percentage daily intake in helping people distinguish more healthy products
• Percentage Daily Intake is based on the recommended daily intake for a 70 kilogram male. This can be misleading for children and for adults with differing energy needs, and confusing for someone shopping on behalf of a family.
• A large segment of the population does not understand percentages
• Percentage Daily Intake information is too complex to be absorbed in the second or two the typical shopper looks at a product on a supermarket shelf
• Because the scheme is voluntary, shoppers will not always be able to compare different products using the same criteria.

Current developments in New Zealand and Australia

New Zealand and Australia have a shared system for food standards. It is administered by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

FSANZ implements policy set by the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council. The New Zealand government is represented on the Council by Minister of Food Safety, Kate Wilkinson.

A Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy for New Zealand and Australia is currently underway

In 2009, Australian and New Zealand governments set in motion a comprehensive review of food labelling law and policy.  Former Australian Health Minister Dr Neal Blewett headed the Review Panel.

• October 2009 – the Review Panel invited stakeholders to provide brief submissions on food labelling issues
• After reviewing this initial round of submissions, the Panel called for final submissions by May 2010
• On 28 January 2011, the Panel released ‘Labelling Logic’, its report on the Review.  It is also known as the Blewett Report after the Panel’s chairman.
• Officials from the New Zealand Government, and Australian Commonwealth, State and Territory governments, are developing responses to the recommendations in Labelling Logic for consideration by the Australian New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council.
• The Council has agreed to consider its response to Labelling Logic at its meeting in December 2011.

Among the Blewett Report’s 61 recommendations was the following:

That a multiple traffic lights front-of-pack labelling system be introduced. Such a system to be voluntary in the first instance, except where general or high level health claims are made or equivalent endorsements/trade names/marks appear on the label, in which case it should be mandatory (p124).

Further, the Report argued that the Percentage Daily Intake system (%DI) favoured by food manufacturers was seriously flawed (p122).

Health sector strongly supports traffic light food labelling

An editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal showed that submissions from the health sector strongly support traffic light labelling.  Submissions from food manufacturers strongly oppose them.

Not all food manufacturers are opposed to traffic lights

Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing criticise Percentage Daily Intake labelling and have proposed a version of traffic light labelling.

But most food manufacturers are lobbying hard against traffic lights

Food manufacturers, led by the Food and Grocery Councils in New Zealand and Australia (NZFGC and AFGC), are strongly opposed to traffic light labels and have been publicising their objections.

They are assuming the traffic light labelling system would be similar to the UK system. This is not necessarily the case. The Blewett Report did not specify the details of a traffic light system, implying that further work would be required to develop a scheme suitable for adoption in New Zealand and Australia.

They are creating caricatures of traffic lights by applying the current UK voluntary scheme to foods for which the scheme was not designed.

So…

Ministers are under intense pressure from food manufacturers to reject the Blewett recommendation on traffic lights.

Supporters of traffic lights need to keep making the public health case to the Minister of Food Safety and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) – which is coordinating New Zealand’s position.

Updated 30 August 2011

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