Examination of Witnesses (Questions 95-99)
MS SUE
DAVIES AND
MS MICHELLE
SMYTH
15 JUNE 2004
Q95 Chairman: Good afternoon, and thank
you very much for coming along to the Committee today, and for
your written evidence which you have submitted previously. Our
apologies for the fact that we are a little behind schedule. I
see you have brought some visual aids to assist in the presentation
today. I am looking forward to seeing how they relate to your
evidence. Could I begin by asking you what the Association thinks
is the type of information that should be on food labels about
the nutritional content of food and how that differs from what
is currently required by law?
Ms Smyth: The main problem we
find at the moment in terms of nutritional information on products
is that it is voluntary. Yes, there is some legislation, a European
Directive, setting out a format for information about four of
the main nutrients. But putting that information on the product
is only compulsory if you were to make a claim about your particular
product. So we do find that there are some manufacturers and some
retailers that take this very seriously, and do provide a lot
of very useful, very clear information to their customers. I have
an example here from the Co-Op, with some clear information in
terms of ingredients but, particularly on this question, in terms
of the nutrition panel. There are other products that do not give
you that information at all. If I take another example here—and,
by the way, these are just some examples illustrating the points
that we may wish to make; we are not picking these out specifically—you
will see that it only gives very limited information; it only
refers to carbohydrate and does not give a breakdown of sugars,
for instance. There are many variations out there on the market
at the moment, so there is a bit of a mix in terms of the information
that consumers get. We would like to see compulsory nutrition
labelling on all pre-packaged foods for the full eight nutrients.
Also, we would like to see that put in a very clear format that
is easy to understand, so consumers can compare one product to
another and would be able to make comparisons in order to make
an informed choice. Most importantly, it is about setting that
information in context. There is some nutritional information
there. We also have information about guideline daily amounts,
for instance, but we would like to see consumers made more aware
of exactly what that means. For example, the Food Standards Agency
has some very useful information in terms of what is rated "a
lot" and "a little" in terms of fat, sugar and
salt. For example, on here it says 10 grammes of fat per 100 grammes—what
does that mean? How does that relate to my daily diet? Is that
a lot? Is that a little? Should I eat two of them? Should I eat
three? We certainly think better communication of that information
is necessary. Thirdly, you talked earlier about a traffic light
labelling system, and we certainly think that would be an important
and useful way of sign-posting to consumers the relationship in
terms of fat, sugar and salt values of a particular food.
Q96 Chairman: How common is the provision
of some form of traffic light system or equivalent on food products
at the moment, in your experience?
Ms Smyth: We know that the Food
Standards Agency is working on criteria for a traffic light system.
This is in relation to foods specifically targeted at children.
Obviously, we would like to see it across the board. Detailed
work is going on at the moment as to how that would look in practice.
We have also seen the announcement a few weeks ago by Tesco that
they are going to introduce later on this year, on a number of
their own-brand products, a traffic light labelling system. It
is certainly clear that people are taking this seriously, they
are looking at the criteria, and we will just have to wait and
see really how that will look in practice.
Q97 Chairman: Should that type of system
be compulsory or should it be voluntary or flow from some form
of code of practice?
Ms Smyth: Obviously, there is
the issue of giving the industry the opportunity to respond, but
we think such a system is needed now, and whilst we welcome what
Tesco have done, we would like to see a system across the board
so you do not have different systems in each supermarket for instance,
because that would take us back to square one, where the consumer
would have to ask what it means in Tesco's and what it means in
Sainsbury's for instance. We would like to see that introduced
as quickly as possible.
Q98 Chairman: How would you ensure that
there was some common understanding across products from different
shops, different supermarkets? Would that be the duty of government,
or the FSA, to regulate that system in some way?
Ms Smyth: We would see the FSA
playing a clear role here in driving this forward and bringing
all the stakeholders together. It is important that there is buy-in
from the industry, consumer groups and retailers right across
the board. That is very important if the scheme is going to work.
Also, we will see in the coming months proposals from the European
Commission in terms of a review of the Nutrition Labelling Directive,
so perhaps there could be some scope there for looking at such
an issue. As I say, we will have to wait and see what those proposals
are.
Q99 Joan Ruddock: I just wondered if
you knew what sort of proportion of food and drink is actually
labelled? This is part of something that I got in the House
of Commons today at lunchtime, when I could not find my organic
yoghurt. I was offered a lemon mousse with a very nice House of
Commons label on it. It has no sell-by date. It has no labelling
whatsoever. When I look inside it, I see it is bright yellow—goodness
knows what may have contributed to that! This is a second one,
which I do not intend to eat. When I tried it, it was incredibly
sweet, and I suspect it is full of all sorts of things that I
wish I had not consumed. How common is this?
Ms Davies: We often hear a figure
of 70% quoted; about 70% of products carry nutrition labelling.
In the UK certainly we have more labelling than they do in other
EU countries. As Michelle pointed out, in a lot of cases you just
get the basic four nutrients, and when we have concerns about
salt as well as sugar, it is not very helpful if you want information
about them. While a lot do provide it, some do not, and it tends
to be the products that are higher in sugar or salt that do not
have the information on them.
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