MEPs Vote Do Not Vote in a Traffic Light Food Labelling System

Fri, 18 Jun 2010
Diabetes UK has expressed its great concern about Euro-MPs voting against the Europe-wide introduction of the traffic-light labelling system on the front of food packaging.

On the other hand, the MEPs voted instead for a standardised display of guideline daily amounts (GDA) on the front of food packages.

The traffic-light system is considered to be the easiest way of informing consumers what is in their food, marking the packaging with red, amber or green symbols dependent on the levels of fat, sugar and salt content.

Douglas Smallwood, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK, was a key signatory to a joint letter from numerous leading health charities calling for MEPs to vote in favour of the traffic-light food labelling system rather than a daily amount guideline.

Diabetes UK deems a single front-of-pack labelling scheme including traffic light colours to be the most helpful for consumers to immediately see which foods have the highest levels of salt, fat or sugar, as there is evidence which shows the traffic-light system functions better than the GDA percentage system in enabling individualse to assess nutrient content and compare different foods.

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