Plans for new food labelling to combat UK obesity are dealt blow as Cadbury and Coca-Cola reject 'traffic light' system !

Plans to tackle UK obesity by introducing a standardised traffic-light food labelling system have been dealt a blow after Cadbury and Coca-Cola failed to sign up to the scheme.


All the major supermarkets have registered for the program, which was launched by Public Health Minister Anna Soubry earlier today, but the fact retailers and manufacturers have to voluntarily sign-up means only around 60 per cent of food products are likely to carry the labelling.

In issuing statements that they preferred the Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) system which is currently in place, Cadbury and Coca-Cola are thought to be the first major retailers to publically reject the new system.
The label combines traffic light colour-coding and nutritional information in the new form of “Reference Intakes” in place of GDAs to show how much of the maximum daily intake of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories is in a 100g portion.

All the major supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-operative, Waitrose and Tesco - have announced that they will use the label on their products, alongside Mars UK, Nestle UK, PepsiCo UK, Premier Foods and McCain Foods.

It follows research that found consumers are confused when more than one scheme is used, which in turn reduces their ability and inclination to use the information.

More here.