Major Food Producers Keep Calories Front of Pack

Twelve leading European food & beverage manufacturers and retailers have committed today to harmonizing nutrition labelling and information across all markets in the European Union (EU). Reacting to a new EU regulation on food labelling, the commitment will ensure consumers have access to consistent, meaningful nutritional information on products.

15 Nov 2012 --- The new EU Regulation on Food Information to Consumers provides a legal framework for voluntary Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling, with some minor changes to the scheme as introduced six years ago (e.g., calorie information on front-of-pack to be presented per 100g/ml in addition to information per portion). The twelve companies - Coca-Cola, Danone, Ferrero, General Mills, Kellog’s, Mondelez, Mars, Metro, Nestlé, Orangina-Schweppes, Pepsico and Unilever will implement these changes by the end of 2014, in line with new guide-lines by FoodDrinkEurope and EuroCommerce for the implementation of the new EU Regulation.

The commitment builds on the industry’s voluntary labelling of Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) put in place six years before European legislation was introduced. It will empower consumers to make informed choices and to build balanced diets, wherever they are in Europe.

The signatories, twelve major European food & beverage manufacturers and retailers, commit to continue using voluntary Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling on their products across all markets in the European Union, as a consistent, harmonised scheme for voluntary nutrition labelling in the European Union. By taking this step, these leading companies follow the recommendation to implement voluntary GDAs by FoodDrinkEurope and its respective commitment that was presented to the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health2 on 14 November 2012.

In line with adapted industry guidelines for food labelling in the regulatory framework of the new EU Regulation on food information to consumers, jointly developed by FoodDrinkEurope and EuroCommerce, this commitment aims at providing consistency and transparency for consumers on the provision of additional, voluntary nutrition information in the future.

This commitment is a joint initiative of food & beverage companies and retailers who share the common goal of providing simple, factual nutrition information to help consumers make informed choices and build balanced diets. Since 2006, signatory members have implemented a clear, informative and user-friendly nutrition labelling system applying monochrome GDAs per portion, providing nutrition information on-pack for calories, sug-ars, fat, saturated fat and sodium/salt.

The first commitment of European food & beverage companies and retailers to implement voluntary GDA labelling across the EU was submitted in 2006 in the absence of relevant legislation on nutrition labelling, as a substantial element of self-regulation promoted by a responsible industry. As a key tool in the fight against overweight and obesity, it was based on a broad agreement that meaningful information was needed to empower consumers to make informed choices, presented in 2006 to the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, and fulfilled by 2009.

In 2011, the new regulation on food information to consumers was adopted, providing for a mandatory nutrition table on the back of the pack of food products, and for the possibility to present voluntary GDA information on either back or front of pack. As self-regulation has been codified by legislation, the 2006 commitment for voluntary labelling can now be seen as fulfilled.

However, we believe that voluntary nutrition information on top of the new mandatory provisions, including GDA labelling, remains important and a crucial tool for consumers. We therefore renew our commitment to use voluntary GDA labelling on our products in the EU, in the framework of the new regulation, and to adapt our packaging accordingly by the end of 2014.

The new EU regulation has introduced some changes to the way voluntary labelling must be applied in the future. The key element of voluntary labelling, the provision of energy information on the front of the pack, remains practically unchanged; only now the energy value has to be presented per 100g/100ml in addition to information per portion.

On the back of the pack, in addition to the mandatory information per 100g/100ml in the nutrition table, voluntary information can be given per portion, both in terms of absolute values as well as percentages of daily intake. If provided, this voluntary GDA information has to be presented within the mandatory nutrition table. Guidelines to implement this new regulatory framework in detail have been developed jointly by FoodDrinkEurope and EuroCommerce, and will be applied by the signatory companies for the implementation of their renewed commitment accordingly.

GDAs provide nutrition information per portion of a product, in addition to the nutrition table with values per 100g/100ml. Information is given on calories, sugars, fat, saturated fat and sodium/salt, both in absolute values and as a percentage of guideline daily amounts. A GDA icon on energy (or on energy plus fat, saturates, sugars and salt) is shown on the front of the pack to provide at-a-glance information on the nutritional content of the product.

GDAs are science-based, underpinned by nutrition recommendations from the Eurodiet project. The reference values used in the GDA scheme have been assessed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as scientifically sound and included in the new regulation on food information to consumers accordingly. The portions on which GDAs are based have been set by the individual European food sectors according to a combination of several factors, including intake data, product density, fortification policy and eating patterns. Recent research provides “evidence that when nutrition information per portion is present on pack in addition to per 100g/ml information, it helps consumers to use nutrition information correctly and quickly”.

Research has indicated that more than 80% of consumers were able to determine the healthier product by using GDAs, and we believe that the use of GDAs in addition to the nutrition table as seen on millions of packs across Europe today provide consumers with relevant per portion information that they can use to make better informed choices.

Broad industry support

Currently, virtually 100% of the eligible product portfolio marketed by the signatories features GDA labelling. However, the initiative is not simply limited to large companies. By 2009, the due date of our first commitment, around 60% of medium-sized and more than 35% of small companies were using or planning to use GDAs on their products. Since then, several thousand brands sold in the EU carry GDA labels, representing more than 25% of the market, rising to 63% in the UK, for example.