Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1260-1279)
15 JANUARY 2004
MR CALLTON
YOUNG, MR
ANDREW WADGE,
MR TOM
MURRAY AND
MS ROSEMARY
HIGNETT
Q1260 Jim Dowd: Enforcement of the current
rules on labelling. Do you feel that is effective, or, indeed,
does it exist?
Ms Hignett: The legislation is
enforced by local authorities. It is very difficult to answer
a question as to how effectively anything is enforced, but certainly
in terms of looking at packs which should have information on
them and whether or not they do, I think, generally speaking,
the information is there if it is required to be there. In terms
of whether the information that is given is accurate, then you
do see from time to time prosecutions around inaccurate information,
but I think I would class it as being from time to time rather
than frequent.
Q1261 Jim Dowd: And that is up to individual
authorities?
Ms Hignett: That is through individual
local authorities, yes.
Q1262 Jim Dowd: Obviously I would assume
that you and the agency generally would have close links with
the environmental health authorities?
Ms Hignett: Yes, indeed we do,
and the agency does have an important role in monitoring and auditing
the performance of local authorities in their enforcement role
in relation to food law.
Q1263 Jim Dowd: A couple of final points.
You mentioned all pre-packaged food?
Ms Hignett: Yes.
Q1264 Jim Dowd: There is a great tendency
amongst supermarkets to pre-package, in polystyrene and cellophane,
fruit and vegetables, for example. Would it apply to that or are
we are talking about processed food?
Ms Hignett: If it is caught by
the legislative definition of pre-packed, then the information
has to be given. There is a sub-category of pre-packed which is
called pre-packed for direct sale, which means that if the supermarket
has actually packaged it on the premises it does not have to give
the information.
Q1265 Jim Dowd: Finally, what work have
you done? I am sorry, it is difficult, I know, to assess, but
how much? Much food labelling at the moment is fact without information.
What work have you done to try to establish what information it
actually conveys to consumers in terms of the regulatory statements
that they make, and how much work has been done, if any, to assess
how people respond to that information, if indeed they understand
it?
Ms Hignett: That is a very broad
question, but if I answer it in terms of nutrition information.
We have been doing a lot of work around researching consumer preferences
in terms of the nutrition information and also performance testing:
how well particular different formats of nutrition information
work in helping people to compare products and make judgments
as to whether they are, for instance, low-fat. We have done quite
a lot of work of that sort which has led us to the conclusion,
which we have published and which we have made the European Commission
very aware of, which is that what consumers want is actually quite
a lot of information but actually packaged in plain English, plain
language, if you like, if you are talking in European terms, and
it is actually particularly important that the numerical information
should come with some context to allow consumers to actually interpret
it. In the formats which we looked at the format which worked
best was one which looked at high, medium and low as a description
as well as the numerical information.
Q1266 Chairman: Before Richard, can I
ask: Jim talked about voluntary sort of codes and steps taken
by individual companies and manufacturers in this whole area.
We were interested in the right approach taken by the Co-op, who
have really gone very seriously in this direction, and I think
certainly I can say I was quite impressed by what they appear
to have done. Do you feel that their lead on this will be followed
voluntarily by any other companies? Do you think they may see
it as being commercially advantageous as there is more awareness
and debate to move in this general direction?
Ms Hignett: There is some movement.
So, for instance, in addition to the compulsory formats, you can
give voluntary information on salt intake, and we have seen a
number of labellers moving towards giving voluntarily information
on salt intake. But I think it would be fair to say that where
the information might be seen as being detrimental—for instance
labelling up a product as high-fat—then I think manufacturers
would be less likely to follow the voluntary route than otherwise.
Q1267 Dr Taylor: Can I follow up on the
high, medium and low: because, as you have said, food labelling
is terribly puzzling to people at the moment and we really wonder
how useful it is at all when the USA has the best type of food
labelling and the biggest problem with obesity. High, medium and
low is attractive. We have got a table of your guidelines for
what they actually mean, but these guidelines are only advisory.
Is there agreement in the food industry, for example, of your
definitions of high, medium and low?
Ms Hignett: I think there are
two things here. There is nutrition information. So what we are
moving towards, what we hope we are moving towards is additional
nutrition information, which would include high, medium and low
descriptors, certainly for things like fat, saturated fat, which
are particularly important; but there is also the area of voluntary
claims, such as a claim that a product is low-fat. In that particular
area, the area of content claims, we have at the moment a situation
where we have not got EU legislation, we have not got harmonised
rules on what characteristics the food needs to have before it
can make a low-fat claim, and we have in the UK voluntary guidelines
which have been established by the Agency after consultation with
the industry and I would say pretty much that there is consensus
in terms of what the appropriate criteria are. But what we also
have, very importantly, is legislation under negotiation in Brussels
which would introduce statutory criteria for claims of this sort.
Then we will have a very clear idea of how much fat there can
be in a product which makes a low-fat claim. So we are part-way
to having the consensus that you are looking for, but not all
the way.
Q1268 Dr Taylor: Do you think there is
a chance of getting that through Europe?
Ms Hignett: Certainly. There have
been discussions amongst Member States since last September and
there is broad agreement that the legislation that is being proposed
is taking the right approach. We have yet to have discussions
in the European Parliament, but hopefully, yes, we will see that
legislation on the statute book before too long.
Q1269 Dr Taylor: What would be your feelings
about danger signs on food? One of our witnesses last week suggested
a skull and cross bones on some things?
Ms Hignett: I think there is a
very interesting debate that has really been initiated in the
last few months, which is about something in addition to the nutritional
information which we see on the back of the pack, which is some
type of sign-posting on the front of the pack to recognise the
fact that consumers are very busy; and we would actually welcome
that in some circumstances.
Q1270 Dr Taylor: Nutrition messages on
the front?
Ms Hignett: Yes, exactly, and
I think that is a very important debate, and certainly in the
discussions that we have had recently with stakeholders I think
there is quite a measure of agreement that there needs to be a
very good look at that to see how it could be done in practical
terms and how effective it might be in terms of helping consumers.
Q1271 Dr Taylor: Moving to food that
is consumed away from home, can anything be done about labelling
in, for example, restaurants? Will Mr Anthony Worrall Thompson
help you with putting information on restaurant menus?
Ms Hignett: Yes. I think that
is a very, very interesting question. Clearly consumer information
in the catering sector is a difficult issue because of the variety
of the sector and particularly because of the very high number
of very small businesses in that sector. There is also, of course,
the difficulty of changes in recipes to be dealt with in some
parts of that sector. Having said that, and focusing still on
consumer information, I think there are some parts of the sector
which would be easier to tackle than others, for instance, large
businesses who are selling essentially standardised meals and
there is also the very important institutional sector, for instance,
in schools. Clearly there is an issue about the level of information
that can be provided on something like a menu. So the sort of
sign-posting that we were talking about in terms of pre-packed
foods might also have some relevance to consumer information on
menus. But that is really only talking about the consumer information
aspect of eating out, and I think there is a whole—there
is a very large debate here, a great deal of concern about the
number of healthier options that do or do not appear on menus,
particularly for children. Very often the children's menu is essentially
the unhealthy option, ie the chicken nuggets and chips.
Dr Taylor: We have just got McDonald's
updated fax. Pancakes and sausage give you 678 calories per portion.
There is no information here about Happy Meals and how many calories
they give you, which I think is a deficiency?
Q1272 Jim Dowd: Just on the labelling,
Richard mentioned the different categories: high, medium and low,
for saturated fat, sugar, salt, sodium and fibre. Given the fact
that one wants to convey information in as simple a form as possible,
is there any mechanism by which you could rationalise that to
a traffic-light system—red, amber, green—over the
whole piece? I do not want to go as far as John would on labelling
devil foods and all the rest of it, but essentially to say to
people whether this overall is good or bad?
Ms Hignett: I think this comes
back to the sort of thing Andrew was saying earlier about how
you integrate different types of information. For instance, I
am sure you will have heard of the Swedish keyhole scheme, which
says "this is a good one". That is essentially the basis
for it. But it is actually only looking at fat and fibre, it does
not look at salt. There are all sorts of different ways in which
you could construct a traffic-light type system. In principle
you could do it, but you would have to take some decisions about
what your objectives were and what message you were trying to
get across with those traffic-lights.
Q1273 Mr Bradley: That is the confusion,
is it not, that you can have within a product high and low. How
does a consumer know which is the most important factor to them?
Even if you employed a traffic-light system, you may be actually
saying to them that it is reasonable to have something within
that product which is of high damage to them, but they would not
actually interpret it like that. I know you have said there is
a problem, but where are you moving in that discussion to integrate
those two contradictory things?
Mrs Hignett: I think we are actually
at quite an early stage in those discussions. We always have to
recognise with labelling that there are very many different types
of consumers who come to that product and that label with very
different needs. The challenge is to try to construct a label
which actually helps everybody. That is very difficult. I am sure
that we still do need that nutritional panel with the six or the
eight nutrients, with the high, medium and low descriptors. Whether,
in addition to that, it would be helpful to have something in
the front of the pack that would actually give a very clear message
to some consumers, which would mean that they did not need to
look at the back essentially, is something that I think we would
have to look at very carefully before going down that route. I
am not saying it is impossible. I think you have to be very careful
that the message you give is a clear one.
Q1274 Mr Bradley: Can I move on to the
promotion of products for children? This is a short question but
there may be quite a long answer. Do you think there is a causal
link between the promotional and marketing activities of the food
industry and the impact that has on children's obesity?
Mr Wadge: The Agency, as you will
be aware, commissioned some research by Professor Hastings, which
was published in September. That was looking at work that had
been carried out nationally and internationally on this particular
topic. It is an important topic on which there is quite a range
of opinion. It tends to divide people, and so it was quite important
that we did look comprehensively at this. This research does show
that advertising and promotion can influence the types of things
that children eat and the behaviours in terms of purchasing and
consumption patterns, not just between brands but also the types
of foods as well. There is some evidence on this. This is one
part of the approach that has been taken really in terms of "what
is the evidence" and establishing that this is the position.
I know that the food industry has provided some challenge to this,
but I think so far, having put the evidence in front of a further
academic panel, that established that the approach was consistent
and the findings were valid. The real challenge is to move on
and ask what should be done about this position.
Q1275 Mr Bradley: What should be done?
Mr Wadge: The approach that the
Agency is taking is to make sure that we do not just leap into
some sort of immediate response but that we test this very carefully.
So far, we have set out on our website an opportunity for people
to debate this issue. We had a public debate in December and we
are having this larger public debate, which I think will probably
be attended by about 700 people. That will be web-cast and shown
on digital channels on 27 January. This will allow us to test
the range of opinion out there and then synthesise that and put
that forward into a paper for our Food Standards Agency Board
to consider at its open session in March. It will need to consider
that and come up with a range of options and advice for Ministers.
Q1276 Mr Bradley: It is an evolving scene.
You are not very sure yet what that impact is. Within that research,
have you looked at the different marketing methods, for example
children's gifts and such like, and whether those have a stronger
influence on the product rather than other mechanisms? The industry
suggested that these had a marginal impact, or some of them did.
Mrs Hignett: We have done a review
of the evidence. Essentially, we have gone out there and looked
at what work has been done. In practice, most of the work that
has been done has been around TV advertising. We did ask the reviewers
to look at the issue of the size of the influence of TV advertising
as against other influences, both other promotional activities
and also other influences on behaviour. The conclusion which the
researchers drew was that the evidence is not there to draw any
conclusions on the magnitude of the effect.
Q1277 Chairman: On the issue of promotional
activities, what powers do you have in respect of this whole area
and what powers ought you to have, if any?
Mrs Hignett: The sorts of options
that we are looking at in terms of promotional activity and children's
diet range from: labelling, which we have already talked about;
looking at the composition of foods, where we have already done
a lot of work on salt and there may be potential to do work, for
instance, on fat and sugar content of foods, which is clearly
relevant; and then things like in-store activity, buy-one-get-one-free
type activity, product placement, sweets at the check-out, that
sort of area, where I think we are probably in the region of voluntary
activity and so perhaps advice from the Agency would be helpful.
Then we have the area of advertising, whether broadcast or print
advertising. The situation in those areas would be that the Agency
has responsibility within the Food Standards Act for advising
on those issues in relation to food and our power, if you like,
is to develop advice to Ministers along the lines that Andrew
Wadge talked about earlier, and publish it, and then the responsibility
is with Ministers to take that forward as they see fit.
Q1278 Chairman: Do you detect any movement
in the industry on acceding to concerns about some of the promotional
activities relating to children in particular? I remember raising
with McDonald's when they came before the Committee the whole
issue of "happy meals". My children are grown up now
but when they were younger, certainly my daughter, they always
wanted a "happy meal" because there was some little
toy given. The industry appeared to give the impression that they
would seriously look at that practice and in particular whether,
if they are introducing healthier items such as fruit into their
outlets, the promotional gift might relate to the healthier item
rather than to the less healthy item? Is that something you see
any movement on?
Mrs Hignett: That is quite a difficult
question to answer. This debate really only started round about
September when we published our review. The situation is changing
at the moment. At present, I would only want to say that the situation
looks to me rather patchy. I think there are some good signs and
maybe some not so good signs.
Q1279 Chairman: As I said at the outset,
in the time that we have started looking at this, we have seen
some tremendous movements. I appreciate your difficulties.
Mr Wadge: Another aspect of this
is that, through the information and awareness work that we are
doing, in a way, as well as providing a push to industry to say
that they should look at the composition and the information that
they are providing and at these promotional activities, we are
also developing a pull on the market by increasing awareness and
thereby increasing the demand for healthier food from caterers
and other sources. We have seen that in relation to some of the
work that we are doing on salt, where we are working very closely
with food manufacturers and food retailers to bring about reductions
in the salt composition of processed food, while at the same time
we are raising awareness, and we will be running a campaign to
raise awareness. Thereby, we will increase the demand. I think
it was a point that you raised earlier.
| 
