Labelling
Coke questions practicality of EU legislation to tackle obesity
Coca-Cola has questioned the practicality of imposing a specific font size for nutritional information on food packaging, amid concerns that new EU legislation could lead to brands adopting larger packs.
The European Commission has proposed legislation to tackle obesity that and boost healthy eating that predominantly displays dietary information and uses a minimum font size of three millimetres.
But a Coca-Cola spokesperson said: "We do not think it is practical to set a standard font size due to the wide variety of shapes and sizes of packaged food products.
"We recognise the legibility of on-pack nutritional information is important, but favour a system that ensures a certain proportion of the package's surface area is devoted to it," the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has also weighed into the labelling debate criticising the EU for allowing a product that is processed in the UK to be labelled as British.
"I think labelling in Great Britain is a disgrace. Categorically. Great Britain cannot choose what its minimum standards for labelling and clarity are because it has to go through the EU and the EU has got a lot more to worry about than just Great Britain."
Legislation proposes labels that uses a minimum font size of 3mm
Comments
Tanya Miller - 12 November 2008
What nonsense!!! Fat people can read just as well as thin people so making the nutritional info bigger is just farcical. Those who are interested read the info, those who aren't don't. Simple.
This is yet another example of politicians trying to show that they are making efforts to change people's eating habits without actually doing anything themselves. Its far easier to delegate the physical changes to the product manufacturers instead of dealing with the costs themselves.
What they fail to realise is that the vast majority of the population have no idea what the Nutritional info means... so..... they need to market the definitions and educate the nation instead of making stupid laws that fail to deal with the root cause.
Ridiculous
To post comments please log in here