Nutrition labelling is a legal requirement in the EU for all soft drinks and most other foodstuffs. Its purpose is to help consumers make better-informed decisions by providing information about the nutritional composition of the food and drinks to encourage them towards more balanced diets.
Nutrition labelling also plays an important role in incentivising food and beverage companies to improve the nutritional content of their products and to provide healthier choices to consumers through reformulation efforts.
WHAT'S BACK-OF-PACK AND FRONT-OF-PACK NUTRITION INFORMATION IN THE EU ALL ABOUT?
The EU Food Information to Consumers Regulation 1169/2011 made ‘back-of-pack’ nutrition information mandatory per 100ml (plus per serving on a voluntary basis), with a minimum font size and in tabular form.
Unlike ‘back-of-pack’ nutrition labelling, front-of-pack nutrition information is not compulsory in the EU.
Nevertheless, since 2008, Europe’s soft drinks producers were global pioneers in voluntarily rolling out sector-wide full ‘Guideline Daily Amount’* nutrition labelling front-of-pack to inform consumers about the nutritional composition of the drinks they choose (including sugars) to support them in to make balanced choices.
*Guideline Daily Amount labelling (also sometimes referred to as ‘Reference Intake’ labelling) on soft drinks includes the amount of calories and sugars provided per serving and per 100ml as a percentage of the independently assessed ‘Guideline Daily Amounts’ for an average person for calories and sugar.
TOWARDS AN EU MANDATORY FRONT-OF-PACK NUTRITION LABELLING SCHEME
As part of its Farm to Fork Strategy launched in 2020, the European Commission planned to propose an EU-wide, harmonised, mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme.
UNESDA advocates for an EU-wide, harmonised, interpretative, and evidence-based front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme that, above all else, is meaningful to consumers, encourages food producers to reformulate and is aligned with EU legislation (such as the EU Food Information to Consumers Regulation and the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation).
UNESDA POSITIONING ON NUTRI-SCORE
When it comes to front-of-pack nutrition labelling, UNESDA does not favour one specific scheme over another.
The reason we have engaged on the Nutri-Score scheme is that an opportunity was provided by the International Nutri-Score Committee committee for UNESDA to provide comments on the algorithm underpinning the current Nutri-Score scheme for beverages.
LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT NUTRI-SCORE
Nutri-Score is one of the front-of-pack nutrition labelling schemes currently used in the EU. It is based on a five-colour-code scheme that assigns a score on nutritional quality – ranging from A to E. Nutri-Score has already been implemented by several EU Member States on a voluntary basis.
The International Scientific Committee on Nutri-Score published a report in April 2023, setting out its recommendations with regard to adapting the specific algorithm for beverages.
NUTRI-SCORE SCHEME FOR BEVERAGES: WHAT KEY IMPROVEMENTS ARE NEEDED?
UNESDA conducted an in-depth technical and scientific review of the previous Nutri-Score algorithm for beverages, in partnership with French public health consultancy, LinkUp Factory. The conclusion was that scheme was not fully optimised to meet its main public health objectives: to provide clear consumer information and to stimulate further sugar reduction and product innovations from industry to widen consumer choice of beverages containing less or no sugar.
Many of UNESDA concerns remain relevant because the new Nutri-Score algorithm for beverages does not address them. In addition, the new algorithm penalises the use of sweeteners at any level in any beverages.
Examples:
A soft drink A containing approximately four times more sugar than soft drink B could obtain the same Nutri-Scores – IF soft drink B contains sweeteners;
A typical ‘diet’ soft drink containing no sugars and sweeteners will move from a B to a C Nutri-Score;
A soft drink containing, eg 5.7% sugars with sweeteners, would move from a D to an E.
This is a discriminatory approach towards sweeteners in beverages, especially considering that the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners in various other food products like fruit purées, canned fruits, yogurts, and breakfast cereals, have not, rightly, raised concerns. There is no scientific justification for taking this differentiated approach between solid foods and beverages, given that when looking at different food groups a comparable proportion of foods and beverages may contain low- and no-calorie sweeteners.