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Top food firms to standardize EU nutrition labels

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 July 2006, 12:45 CDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Seven international food and drink companies have agreed to label their products in Europe for nutritional content to help consumers pursue healthier lifestyles, they said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

Their move is based on voluntary guidelines issued by the Confederation of Food and Drink Industries (CIAA), representing Europe's vast food and drinks industry, for a uniform list of nutrients, calories per serving and recommended daily intakes.

The companies are: Coca-Cola Co., Danone, Kellogg Co., Kraft Foods Inc., Nestle, PepsiCo Inc. and Unilever. The new labeling policy will start by the end of this year.

"The seven companies welcome the CIAA scheme and encourage other companies to adopt it across the whole of Europe to promote consistent nutrition labeling and information for consumers," the statement said.

"Nutritional information can be difficult to understand and the companies believe that this approach will be genuinely effective in getting complex messages across in an easily understood way," it said.

Labels will be placed on the front packaging of a food product with the number of calories included and the percentage they represent of total recommended daily calorie intake.

A list of eight key nutrients will be on the back - energy in calories, proteins, carbohydrates, sugars, fats and saturated fats, fiber and sodium/salt. If there is no space, the list will be reduced to energy, proteins, carbohydrates and fat.

There will also be information on guideline daily amounts (GDAs) for items that the companies said were "of public health concern": fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt. "The inclusion of GDAs will provide consumers with a science-based, non-discriminatory and easy-to-use system that facilitates informed dietary choices," the statement said.

CIAA's recommendations and their adoption by some major food companies will feed into the EU's wider debate on health and nutrition claims, a three-year saga that should end this autumn with a vote in the European Parliament.

Once updated rules come into force, as they are expected to do shortly after the Parliament vote, EU food and drink makers using phrases such as "low fat," "high energy" or "low alcohol" on products will have to use stricter definitions.

Under the new rules, a producer can make a claim concerning fat, sugar, salt or energy only if it meets certain standards.

If it is making a claim about a positive aspect of a product, it must also clearly detail any negative points. For example, if a product has a low amount of sugar, but a lot more salt, then the label will have to say "low in sugar, but high salt content."

Until now, the food and drinks industry has been subject to the individual laws of the bloc's 25 member states.

Fresh food such as fruit, vegetables and bread are excluded from the new rules, while products with trademarks can continue to be marketed in their current form for another 15 years.

Source: REUTERS

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