The Front of Pack Labelling discussion goes on and on and on and
The Blewett review of food labelling conducted a few years ago, highlighted that the current way used by the food industry to show how much of certain nutrients are present in a food compared to that allowed for a normal healthy adult, is not working all that well for much of the Australian population.
Therefore one of the Review’s recommendation was some form of front of pack labelling using traffic lights or similar to show the general healthiness of each food.
This concept was agreed to by the Health Ministers around the country, however it was not in the form of traffic lights.
The whole issue has raised nothing short of a furore between the food industry, consumer groups, governments and anyone else who wants to have a say.
Therefore the concept of some form of Health Star Rating has been raised as a suitable alternative. It does not use the daily intake guide (DIG) currently referred to be the food industry, but is based on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) nutrient profiling criteria. So it includes; kilojoule, saturated fat, sodium and sugar content, and considers the amount of; protein, fruit, vegetables, fibre and nuts / legumes present in the food.
The star rating system was originally developed in the USA by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and although not the preference of consumer groups in Australia, is more acceptable to the food industry in general than traffic lights.
Obviously the more stars a food has, the healthy it is.
The IOM model displays the energy content (kJ) and then a star rating for each food, like this; 2134kJ 2.5stars.
A website was recently developed by the federal Government including a Health Star rating calculator, however due to political reasons, the website was pulled down a short time later.
In the meantime, Choice has used the Calculator to work out a rating for some of the big names in our supermarkets and the results were not thrilling.
It is important to remember that as the actual amounts of some of the components used in the rating calculation are only available to the product manufacturer in their recipes, the results were based on some estimates.
What was particularly interesting is that there were some significant variations between the products from different manufacturers, as anexample;one peanut butter brand scored 5 stars whilst another only got as high as 3 stars.
Ms Angela Cartwright, CHOICE Campaigns Manager, said; “Our health star snapshot shows that it is possible to have considerably healthier versions of the same type of product. CHOICE thinks the Scheme will not only give consumers information they can use at-a-glance but spur companies to improve their product offerings, creating a healthier food supply in the long term.”
It is now well recognised that some form of front of pack labelling system will most likely make it easier for consumers to compare one product in terms of health with another, but which method it will be and how soon it will finally be agreed to is indeed another issue entirely.
It really is a case of watch this space.
Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach