Which? censures FSA over ‘ludicrous’ voluntary food labelling plans

Board chairman Lord Rooker said it wanted a “single approach to FOP labelling that works”. “Tremendous progress has been made by industry in taking up FOP labelling, but different schemes are confusing customers,” he said.

A four-to-six week consultation will now take place to establish guidance to implement the proposal, but as it falls under European law the scheme will still be voluntary.

Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said the FSA had lost sight of its mandate to look out for consumers’ interests.

“When all the evidence shows that a single combined nutrition labelling scheme works best for consumers, it seems ludicrous to give a green light allowing companies to persist with their own different schemes,” he said.

The British Retail Consortium has said it made no sense to introduce changes to the current system, as the issue was being reviewed by the European Union

Andrew Opie, British Retail Consortium Food Director said retailers had “developed nutrition information that they know works best for their customers”.

“It would be too soon for the UK to adopt any new regime of its own until a final decision about front-of-pack labelling is taken at European level. Changing and then changing again would just produce extra costs and customer confusion,” he said.

An FSA spokesman told Packaging News that once the guidance is completed it would be put to Department of Health ministers and that it felt that a voluntary scheme was the best approach.

“Ministers have said they would consider mandatory labelling if they felt firms were not following the voluntary scheme well enough,” he said.

To read the full FSA board document, click here.

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