Labelling

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is lobbying the government to make it compulsory for food and drink manufacturers and retailers to adopt its colour-coded labelling system on packaging.

Tory MP David Amess went before the House of Commons on 18 July and called for the introduction of a bill. However, industry insiders said the likelihood of the scheme being mandated is extremely slim.

The FSA system uses traffic-light colours to indicate the levels of fat, salt and sugar in food, as well as specifying the quantities of each.

However, the system has failed to win the approval of firms, including Tesco.

The supermarket instead developed its own Guideline Daily Allowance (GDA) system, which specifies the amount of sugar, fat, salt and saturates in foods. Unlike the traffic-light labelling, it states the number of calories as well as a percentage indicating the proportion of the recommended daily amount of each nutrient contained in products.

Sainsbury’s uses a version of the FSA’s system called the Wheel of Health. Waitrose and Asda also backed the FSA system, although Asda also favours the inclusion of GDA percentages on packaging.