Food giants form labelling alliance
Key pub trade food suppliers including Pepsico and Nestle have launched their own food labelling scheme ahead of the official government 'traffic light' scheme.
Kraft, Danone and Kelloggs have joined Nestle and Pepsico in agreeing a format for providing details of calories, sugar, fat, saturates and salt on product.
The labels will provide Guideline Daily Amount(GDA)information on a wide range of best selling brands, including Walkers crisps, Aero, KitKat, Dairylea and Kellogg's Cornflakes.
It follows the announcement earlier this week that both Cadbury and Mars owner Masterfoods have signed up to 'Be Treatwise', a labelling scheme launched by the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Association. That scheme also provides information in the form of GDAs.
The Food Standards Authority (FSA) is due to announce its proposals for an industry-wide food labelling scheme next month.
The FSA favours the traffic light approach. This would see foods labelled green, amber and red according to whether they have high, medium or low levels of ingredients such as saturated fat, sugar and salt.
However, the launch of two high-profile rival schemes makes the single, industry-wide agreement favoured by the FSA less likely to succeed.
Martin Glenn, chief executive of Walkers Crisps owner PepsiCo, told the BBC that the food industry needed to move faster that the FSA timetable in the face of competitive pressure from supermarkets' own-brand labelling schemes.
He also dismissed the traffic light approach as "wrong-headed". Consumers were likely to assume they could eat as much of any 'green' foods as they liked, said Mr Glenn, and would avoid 'red' food altogether, which would not lead to a balanced diet, he said.
The 'Choosing Health' White Paper in 2004 called upon the food industry to self-regulate by providing better nutritonal information to consumers, or face legislation.
Trade body the Food and Drink Federation welcomed tne latest move, sayng there is "clear agreement" amongst suppliers that GDAs are the best way to provide consumers with information about food.
